Editor, Joshua Essoe

April has been a great month of posts from a bunch of awesome people who work in all the nooks and crannies of the book production process—illustrators, cartographers, designers, typographers, and, of course writers. We’ve had posts on the process from concept to completion, how to collaborate with other writers, and, of course, editing, editing, editing. Obviously a subject close to my heart.

I’d like to close out the month with some of the most frequently asked questions I get from writers, and most frequent issues I see in my day to day work as a full time editor.

So without further ado, let’s just jump into it!

• What is industry standard formatting?

This is the standard manuscript formatting that will be generally accepted anywhere you want to submit. It is the formatting standard by which I work as well. If a market or agent or editor needs something that differs from this, then it will be in their submission guidelines. Always go with the specifics they require and make sure to check. If they don’t specify, feel safe going with the old standard.

Specs for Industry standard: (in Word) 12 point New Courier, spaced “exactly 25 point” (not double spaced!) with widow control off; one inch margins all the way around; half inch first-line indent, header and footer; zero indentation and spacing; titles on seventh line down; and  name/title/pg# in the right-side header.

• Should I use double spaces or a single space between sentences?

This is hot-button issue. If you don’t believe me, just bring it up the next time you’re around a bunch of writers. I’ll prepare for the hate mail now because inevitably this answer is going to make someone turn into a giant green rage monster.

The reason double spaces were used between sentences is because when people were using typewriters, editors needed a strong, definitive break between sentences. The monospaced font typewriters used didn’t create that, so two spaces were inserted. It isn’t necessary with word processors.

Whether you use one or two spaces these days comes down to a style issue. Some editors prefer one, some prefer two, however most style guides advise you use only one. As I understand it, page designers beg the use of just one to avoid the unsightly blocks of space that using two will litter a document with. If your MS is at that step, they’ll just have to remove all the double spaces anyway.

So forget the double spacing. I always recommend using just one.

Excuse me while I go lock my doors.

• What the heck is passive voice?

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.

For example: “The next few hours were consumed with preparations for the journey.”

What is doing the action in this sentence? The preparations; however, the preparations are not in the spot where you would expect the grammatical subject to be—the hours are. So, to make this sentence active, rearrange it thusly: “Preparations for the journey consumed the next few hours.”

Look for forms of “to be” (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. The past participle is a form of the verb that typically, but not always, ends in “-ed.” Some exceptions to the “-ed” rule are words like “paid” and “driven.”

So here’s the formula for spotting passive voice: form of “to be” + past participle = passive voice.

I will sometimes call things out as passive storytelling that aren’t technically passive verbs or passive voice. I’ll mark both progressive and pluperfect tenses passive at times—note, I don’t mark them as passive verbs. When I do this, it means that there is a more dynamic way to write the passage I’ve highlighted. It could be made stronger and more vibrant with a different, more active verb. Progressive and pluperfect often present as good an opportunity as a passive verb to make your text more interesting.

Unless it is the most effective way to put something, try never to start a story off with something passive sounding. These kinds of things will often amount to personal preference. When I spot something like this, I’ll call it out so the author can decide what’s best for their story. Personally, I like active storytelling—I find it both more engaging and better able to draw pictures in my head. Most readers do.

• How do I properly punctuate dialogue?

In dialogue, the only time you use a comma is when you are continuing a sentence after or before a tag. Note that when a comma is used, it indicates that the sentence is not over, so use lowercase when inserting a tag. Always put the comma inside the quotation marks if a tag follows the dialogue, and at the end of the tag if a tag precedes the dialogue. Use a period for everything that is not a tag.

For example:

1. I guided her to my chair. “Sit here.”
   Not: I guided her to my chair, “Sit here.”
   
2. “We need to get out of here.” His whisper sounded like a hiss of air.
   Not: “We need to get out of here,” his whisper sounded like a hiss of air.
3. “We need to get out of here,” he whispered.
   Not: “We need to get out of here.” He whispered.
4. She squealed, “Like, ohmygod!”
   Not: She squealed. “Like, ohmygod!” (Unless the squeal was a separate utterance.)

• Do I write out numbers, or just use numerals? What about percentages and times?

This is one of those questions where if you ask a dozen different people, you’ll get a dozen different answers. Here is what I tell my clients.

For fiction, write out any number under 101, and numbers easily expressed in words like “one thousand.” This is the easiest rule of thumb to go by, and then let your publisher or editor make any in-house style changes they need.

As long as the number can be spelled out and still be easily understood without looking ridiculous, then spell it out.

If you’re writing dialogue, spell out all the numbers. Of course, even here The Chicago Manual of Style notes that you should use numerals “if words begin to look silly.” But the idea is that you should lean toward using words in dialogue.

All percentages and decimal fractions should be written in numerals. The only exception is for the beginning of a sentence, where the numeral would be spelled out. The Chicago Manual of Style’s general rule is to spell out zero through one hundred. Use the word “percent” for humanistic copy and the “%” symbol for scientific and statistical copy.

Normally, spell out the time of day, even with half and quarter hours. With “o’clock,” the number is always spelled out.

Use numerals, however, when exact times are being emphasized, or when using A.M. or P.M., but use “noon” and “midnight” rather than 12:00 P.M. and 12:00 A.M.

Bonus trivia—you can write “a.m.” and “p.m.” as lowercase letters with periods, or as small capitals without periods. Either way, there should be a space between the time and the “a.m.” or “p.m.” that follows. It’s more common to see lowercase letters followed by periods.

Also, when following an exact time with either, the time should be written as a numeral unless it is dialogue.

• When do I use “which” and when do I use “that”?

Use “that” before a restrictive clause, and “which” before everything else. A restrictive clause is part of a sentence that you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts some other part of the sentence.

For example: “Jewels that glow are worth more money.”

“That glow” restricts what kind of jewels we’re talking about, so you can’t get rid of it without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Nonrestrictive clauses include a part that can be left off without a change in meaning.

For example: “Jewels, which may glow, are worth a lot of money.”

Note that when you use a nonrestrictive clause it is set apart by commas.

• Are there three or four dots in an ellipsis? Which do I use when a character stutters?

Use three dots when the ellipsis follows an incomplete thought; but include a period as normal, before the ellipsis, when following a complete thought.

When using an ellipsis, make sure that there is a space between it and the word it follows and/or precedes, and between each ellipsis point.

As for the second question, there is a difference between stammering and stuttering and, usually, I find the author means stammering. For that, the ellipsis is the better way to go. Em dashes are used to represent an interruption or break in thought, whereas ellipses are for trailing off, or pausing.

So, for example:

“Where is your sword—wait, you didn’t give it to them, did you?”

That shows a clean, abrupt break in the thought. If you replace with an ellipsis:

“Where is your sword . . .? You didn’t give it to them, did you?

This shows trailing off in thought before the beginning of a new thought.
If you combine you may get:

“Where is your sword . . . wait, you didn’t give it to them, did you?”

That is incorrect because you should finish and punctuate your first thought before going on to the next.

So, “I . . . I don’t know.” is the way to go for a stammer. “I” is a whole word, and thus should be treated as any other whole word.

If you were going for a stutter, you would use a hyphen thusly:

“I . . . I d-don’t know.”

The hyphen shows that the character utters the same sound multiple times while trying to get out a single word. (Since “I” is a whole word, that fact takes precedence over it also being a single sound.)

I’m quite out of room, so hopefully that answered some of your questions . . . and hopefully no rage monsters are now beating out responses with two spaces before each sentence.

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Artist, Jonathan Roberts

Guest Post by Jonathan Roberts

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now.

A map shouldn’t be pretty.

I know what you’re thinking – those posters of Middle Earth are gorgeous. Of course a map should be beautiful! But for worldbuilding purposes a pretty map is a Very Bad Thing. Beautiful things are precious, and we tend to want to leave precious things pristine and untouched. When we’re building worlds we need to break things, and often. So, out with any thoughts that we’re making a pretty map. We’ll be making a functional map. In fact we’ll be making many maps, one after the other. In exactly the same way that your notes are not the final manuscript, a map isn’t the final world. It’s a visual notepad, and you should be crossing things out, erasing sections and rebuilding from scratch as you go along.

So we won’t be needing photoshop today, we need a pad of scratch paper and a pencil. Ready? Right, let’s build a world.

First of all, think about the world you need to build. In many cases this is a defined area that’s much smaller than the planet you’re on. Very few stories truly span a globe, so let’s begin by cutting down to the area that the story explores. This keeps the work focused on a reasonable area, and means there will always be distant and mysterious lands to explore down the line.

In your tale there will be nations, city states or power centers of some form. Start by making a note of their relationships to one another. Are they at war? Are they aloof? Do they feud over resources or are they closely allied? Think over the things that make them stand out. Are they famous for their expansive grain fields? Their iron? Their navy? I’m sure you can see the theme here. Nations are defined by the geography they inhabit as much as we define the geography by the nation. A nation with a large navy needs sea access, but it should also have natural defenses like a mountain range that allows the nation to neglect other military forces in favor of its navy. Two countries at war need to be close, and need to have a means of attacking one another.

Focus on major terrain at this point–how much coastline and mountain range. Make notes about other terrain that comes to mind–the tulip fields of Alak’tor, the salt mines of Keshel. Those will come in useful later.

It’s now time to start our map. Grab a pencil and faintly draw in circles where your nations are. Nations that are allies or at war should be close. Those that rarely interact should be farther away, or have an insurmountable natural barrier between them. Drawing circles on a map may sound easy, but this stage can take a few tries to get the relationships right.

Stage 1: Circles. Yes, these are 6 interconnected nations!

But circles aren’t really a map. Let’s draw some coastlines. Think about which of your nations need large coastlines and which should be landlocked. Then let your pen wander. Really – avoid straight lines. Coastlines are jagged and broken things. If your line doesn’t look like it was plotted by a drunken ant, you’re doing it wrong.

Step 2: The coastlines. Keep them broken and randomized.

Now let’s lay in some mountains. Mountains tend to form ridges. Avoid the temptation to fill in whole blocks of land with mountains. Instead, lay them out in wavy lines. They often follow the edge of a coastline (think the Andes). From a story point of view, they form obstacles for your heroes and they create natural boundaries between nations, or between nations and the great unknown. Mountains also create boundaries between climates. So if you need a desert in one area and a jungle in the other, you’d better place a mountain range between them to stop the rain from the jungle getting to the desert.

Step 3: Mountains – they shouldn’t be pretty, inverted triangles do the job just fine.

Next up, we have rivers. Rain falls on mountains and runs downhill to the sea. It always flows to the lowest point – and there’s always one lowest point. This means that rivers don’t branch as they flow to the sea, they only join. So – no rivers going from coast to coast. At some point that requires water to flow uphill. No lakes that have two separate rivers leading to the sea – remember, only one lowest point leading out. Think of a river like a tree. There’s one trunk where it enters the sea, but a panoply of branches reaching towards the mountains.

Rivers are also strategically important. There’s hardly a river mouth in the world without a town on it and most great cities lie on a river. If you know where your cities are going to be, make sure there’s a decent sized river flowing through them. Equally, rivers make great defenses. It’s hard to build a wall all the way along your nation’s border, but it’s almost as hard to get an army over a well-defended river as it is to have them scale a wall.

Step 4: As rivers run to the coast they only join, they never branch.

Add some hills to the edge of your mountain ranges. Lay in some forest and see how it looks. Remember, don’t be precious. If you don’t like it, start on a new sheet of paper. Sketch another coastline. Turn it upside down.

When you’re happy with the terrain, go over the pencil lines with pen, and erase the pencil–including your nation boundaries. Scan and photocopy the map. Go away and have some food.

When you come back, try the following experiment. Ignore your previous nations. Look at the virgin world with a new eye. If you were founding a country in the world, where would you start? What would be the key strategic choke points? Look at the world as if you were playing Civ. Where are the resources you need to defend, what lands would you try to annex? Use some colored pencils to sketch in different nations and boundaries. Edit the rivers if you need to, move things around. You’ve got lots of copies of the map–experiment.

Once you have a layout you like, we’ll add cities.

Step 5: Hills and Forests, add them wherever you see fit. These are easily moved.

Cities are where they are for a reason. They don’t just appear up in the middle of nowhere. Population centers need food, water, trade and security. Rivers can provide all of  these, which is why towns and cities tend to spring up at river mouths. Locate your capitals in places that are easily defended and that have good transport connections to the rest of the nation. Place smaller cities in key locations, whether that’s in the heart of a mining community on the edge of a mountain range, at a key strategic river crossing, or a market town in the middle of leagues of prime cattle-ranching land. At this point, also mark in major fortifications.

Step 6: Place cities, towns and fortifications.

With these indicated it’s a simple matter to place the roads. These will connect the major cities, the main food producing regions, and any other major trade routes.

You now have a perfectly functional map! But remember, nothing is set in stone. Each time you run through this process your map will be better. Each time you sketch the map you’ll have new ideas. As you continue to write about your world you’ll come up with new thoughts on what terrain you should have, how two countries relate across their border, where a great wilderness needs to be. Redraw the map – it’s there for you. Both your map drawing and your text will be better for the relationship between map and story.

And when your manuscript is ready to go from draft to final, your map will be ready to go from sketch to illustration. But that’s a post for another day.

Step 7: Colored and finished!

If you want to learn about the art of mapmaking, then check out the Cartographers’ Guild, or my own tutorials.

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Guest Post by Michael Rothman

Certainly the first major milestone in writing a novel is getting the first draft complete. Oddly enough, this is sometimes the best time to take a step back from the manuscript and give yourself a little time away from it.

The reason I say this is because when you want to go through your initial self-editing phase, you probably want to approach the manuscript as a reader. Try to get a bit of a separation from the book.

Ultimately, you aren’t writing for yourself (or typically you aren’t), you are writing for an audience and you want to scrutinize your novel as a reader would. Given that, there are many folks who can speak much more authoritatively about the editing phases than I can, but suffice it to say that self-editing is a skill that should be learned by any aspiring author, but that shouldn’t be confused with not needing an editor.

This leads me to the first of the five topics I wanted to cover.

• Editors – the folks who find the booboos, clean up the scrapes in your manuscripts, and teach you lessons you didn’t know you needed to learn.

Despite my relatively fewer years in the industry, I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with some of the best editors in the industry, you know who you guys are [Betsy, Pat, Joshua]. Given that experience, I can say that without a doubt, any author who hasn’t put their manuscript through professional-level editing is likely doing their readers a disservice.

o Authors Behaving Badly

 How would you react if someone told you your child was ugly, and stupid? Not well I’d imagine.

Well, what do you think your reaction would be like when you toiled over a manuscript only to get it back from the editor awash in red ink?

Many people’s first reaction is to throw a fit, call the editor all sorts of names, and maybe throw the nearest object against the wall.

Let me recommend something a little different.

• Consider the feedback, let it soak in, don’t write that nasty e-mail you were about to write, and wait a day or two.

o Authors are a defensive lot. In many cases, they find it difficult to accept criticism of their work.

o Let’s be realistic and say that unless you’ve hired a complete cretin as your editor, they likely make a point or two you should consider.

o Had you really achieved perfection in your manuscript, you wouldn’t need an editor, people would be waiting for your golden words to spill out as you type them.

 Realize that you don’t know it all

• Something that sounds good in your head, oftentimes doesn’t sound nearly as good in the written form.

• Editors will point out things that you were otherwise blind to. Many times it isn’t because you’ve written something grammatically incorrect; perhaps the editor noted that using the word amazing five times in a single paragraph might be a touch overkill. A thesaurus is sometimes an author’s best friend.

• A professional editor is simply trying to improve your manuscript inasmuch as helping it flow better, sound better, and be more intriguing to the audience that you’ve chosen. For instance, I had an editor point out a certain scene in one of my current novels that might have been too much for the age group I was targeting. After a fair amount of consideration, I agreed with her. And that leads me to the next point about the author/editor relationship.

o It is the Author’s book, not the editor’s

 As an Indie author, you ultimately control the words in the book. When you are with a publishing house, some of that control is not absolute.

 If an editor gives you feedback, they are oftentimes giving you either specific items that they felt were wrong or inconsistent, or they were speaking in general terms. Either way, it is the author’s decision if and how they act on that feedback.

• If you generally agree with the editor’s comment, then by all means, go ahead and fix it.

• However, if you don’t agree with the editor’s comment, make the call that you feel suits the story best, because sometimes the editor simply isn’t right.

o I’d note that I probably take 80% of the editor’s comments and do “something” with them. They usually bring a unique perspective as a different kind of reader that is invaluable in assessing your writing and the manuscript as a whole.
o Editors are the ultimate teachers of writing lessons

 I’ve learned more about writing from having to deal with the editor comments than I’ve learned from writing entire novels. I can’t stress enough how important a good quality editor is. Find one and don’t let go.

• Book Covers

o As an Indie author, you will find yourself in a position to control how your novel is presented to the world. In real life, we say that a first impression is always very important. Well, your book’s first impression will inevitably be its cover.

Given that, unless you are artistically inclined, you will likely need to consult with someone on the creation of this cover. What typically happens in the publishing houses is that publisher engages with an artist and hands them the story or a particular section of the story and oftentimes a scene from the manuscript is pulled to represent the book.

Below is an example of just such a scene in my second book, Tools of Prophecy.

You’ll notice that it is a landscape picture intended to serve as a cover for a print book, so the portion on the right would be the front cover, and the portion on the left would wrap around toward the back. In this case, the scene is from a climactic portion of the story that was pulled from the finalized story material.

Clearly, for an e-book, you wouldn’t need the complete picture, but only the right-hand portion of this. Below is an example of the same illustration, but finalized for production purposes.

• ISBN Acquisition

An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is something you’ll inevitably have to acquire to sell your book. This is typically used to uniquely identify a book. Kind of like your driver’s license number uniquely identifies who you are, the ISBN number identifies what book a buyer or seller is dealing with. I’d note that even with a single title of a book (e.g. Tools of Prophecy) it likely has at least four different ISBN numbers. One for its paperback edition, another for a hardcover edition, another for a Kindle e-book, and another for a Nook e-book.

A very common purveyor of ISBN numbers is a placed called Bowkers. You can buy a single ISBN number from them, or 1000’s. The author’s/publisher’s choice.

• E-book formatting

One thing that isn’t obvious for most people is the need for special formatting in an e-book. Even though there are hundreds of articles that talk in detail about the formatting requirements, there are some software utilities that make things very simple, and I strongly recommend looking into them (especially since they are free.)

Look at one in particular; a software package called Calibre.

Another thing that I can comment on, that I’ve rarely seen mentioned in articles is the need for a manuscript (even when using Calibre) to be conscious of how they use fonts. For instance, I have on the title page, a font with shadow effects that I really like the look of.

However if I were to use it as-is, the Kindle/Nook platforms would make the title page look like garbage.

The trick for this is to take a screenshot of the font on your computer, and in the .doc file you use for your e-book creation, embed the screenshot of the title as a graphic. This way, the e-book viewers will read the content and not attempt to translate it in some funky manner. It will look like you want it to.

• Distribution methods

At this stage, you’ve written the book, you’ve gone through editing phases, and your hired gun of an editor has kicked you in the teeth and you’ve recovered. You have a cover that you don’t hate, and you even have an ISBN number, and the formatting of your book is complete. Pant…pant…pant… it’s been a long haul.

As an Indie author, I believe 90%+ of the volume you’ll likely see will come from e-book sales.

Why? Well, e-books are typically cheaper than print books, and in most cases, you’ll find it difficult to get print books in front of the noses of purchasers. Those are the facts as I see them.

Given that, I do have a few recommendations.

• I’m a huge believer in the Amazon venue of distribution. No, I don’t own stock, nor am I an employee, nor do I know anyone who is one. From what I can tell, I’ve see easily ten times the volume of material goods moving through Amazon compared to its nearest competitor. I’ve seen this with my own books, and I’d guess others see similar things as well. That being said, I’ll only mention the three most commonly talked about distribution venues. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Google is your friend for details on each of these things, and in the smash allotted, I’d look up the keywords I mention here if they are unfamiliar.Even though I have seen a very distinct majority of sales through Amazon, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take advantage of other venues. I would certainly use Amazon’s KDP service (Kindle Direct Publishing) for making an e-book available. Also Barnes & Noble’s PubIt service is their equivalent of the same thing, just a slightly different technical format, both of which are supported by the Calibre software I mentioned earlier.
• I’m personally not a big fan of Smashwords, though many people use it because of its simplicity. They take an extraordinary amount of money for services that almost anyone can do themselves – especially if you’ve gone through the trouble of getting an editor, cover artist, etc – I don’t personally see the advantage of using Smashwords for general purpose distribution. I would limit their use to target distribution areas that aren’t already covered by Amazon or B&N. In truth, you likely won’t be missing much if you don’t use them at all, but that’s strictly my opinion.

I hope this has been helpful, and if there are any questions, just let me know. As it is, I’m nearly double the word count that Joshua asked me to stick to–but I don’t always listen to my editors.

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Artist, Jennifer Miller

Guest Post by Jennifer Miller

I want to thank Joshua Essoe for inviting me to write an entry today! I’m going to talk with you about visual artwork for your book—for most, this means cover art. Unlike many bloggers here, I am a visual artist, and not an artist with words, so if you make it to the end, pat yourself on the back.

Before I begin, I wish to make clear that I am going to focus on those writers that intend to self-publish, or publish with smaller independent publishers. Large publishers tend to have their own artists that they work with; sometimes the author has little say in who illustrates their cover. Exceptions to this might be illustrated children’s books and things like graphic novels, that have a lot of art on each page. That is a subject for another post entirely. Pressing on….

You have a great story. You stand behind it, and you are ready to publish. Time to slap some art on that thang and call it done! The theory is simple; you want something that instantly tells the reader something about your book… perhaps a mood, or a key scene, or even just a mysterious glimpse to grab their attention. The cover is your product packaging, so some care must be considered beyond “put a nice picture on there.”

Okay, so you knew this was coming: “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” This is, of course, true about the story, but it is hardly a good reason to dismiss the cover. While I am admittedly biased, I am sure that if you asked around, I am far from alone: people notice the cover. The book is not defined solely by its cover, but certainly a cover can greatly influence who notices your book, how many people notice it, and why they notice it.

Check out this quote: “The cover may very well be the single biggest piece of marketing that book will receive,” says Paul Buckley, the Vice President Executive Creative Director at Penguin Group USA. “For first time authors and writers that have not yet built up a big following, the cover may be the only thing that gets a reader (or reviewer, for that matter) to physically pick the book up.” (source below)

While e-books have started to pick up steam, both book types benefit from having eye-catching art on the front. In fact, some suggest that e-book covers are just as important than those on physical books, because online buyers are presented with a myriad of thumbnail images when browsing on the most popular sites. The most eye-catching images in the thumbnail soup can have a big impact on what pages readers open up to further investigate. In the physical world, I cannot begin to count the number of times I have picked up a book based on the subject matter on the cover. Whether I was delighted or disappointed with the contents of the book is beside the point–the cover got it in my hands and got my eyes reading that wonderful text inside….

For much more reading on the importance of covers, check out this article.

Well, you’ve decided you want a cover, and you have the freedom to select the artist you want. Where to begin? Some of you might have an artist in mind for years, or some of you might have no idea. One way to start out is to consider your genre and begin your search that way. There are many websites out there; some are direct galleries on personal artist websites, and some are a huge mosh pit of everything. Browsing and searching might take some time, so kick back and enjoy the visual roller coaster.

Jennifer Miller’s artwork for Song of the Summer King by Jess Owen.

Once you find someone that tickles your fancy, pay close attention to their subject matter and style, and imagine that style on your cover. Visualize what subject matter you want–is it radically different from anything the artist has in their gallery? One thing that surprises me as an artist is that sometimes I will have someone in love with my style, but pays no attention to my subject matter… or, someone that is in love with my subject matter, and pays no attention to style. By all means, artists do branch out, and it never hurts to ask! But… do not be surprised if the photo-realistic artist is not keen to paint an anime-style cover for you, or if the artist that paints landscapes says ‘no’ to your cyber-punk cover. You may be pleasantly surprised, of course, but observing the artist’s strengths can only help you find someone that will mesh well with your project!

Another important consideration is time. For some artists, rolling out a complete painting in a short period of time is no big deal, and some people do work better under stress. For most artists though, we have a great many projects that have deadlines throughout the year. Asking for a fully detailed cover painting just days before you hope to publish is a good way to get a “sorry, I cannot…” letter in return, or… at the very least, some pretty stiff “rush fees” to cover the all-nighters that such a project entails. Different artists can work at different speeds, but a really nicely-detailed piece can take me more than one hundred hours. This is not counting the investment of time in research, and communication to make sure everything is on track. It is not unreasonable to consider contacting your potential artist at least six months before you have a deadline; some high-profile artists might need more advance warning than that.

Cost is something I am only going to touch on lightly because, frankly, this is a wild variable. I like to think that artists and writers have a sort of brotherhood (I think of it as the Brotherhood/Sisterhood of Underpaid Creative Persons). We both know what it is to do something you love and probably not get paid much for it. We both know what it’s like to be self-employed, and how much of our money just flies right out the window to the tax man and bill collector. Just as you would hope that someone would be willing to pay fairly for your time, please consider paying an artist fairly for theirs. I have found that most writers are amazingly cool about this (go, Brotherhood!), but I have had a fair number of rude individuals that tried to convince me that my time and skills were worth nothing. There is an artist out there that will work for any cover budget you have, but you will probably get what you pay for. Investing in a good cover is one of the most important investments you place in your book. However, don’t be deterred if you can’t afford much. Look for artists whose work is simple and has less time invested. If your artist has any sort of following, consider the amount of traffic simply having them do the cover might bring you. Once they have art published on your book, they have an investment in your book now too.

Rights and contracts: this is something that a lot of authors don’t consider until their artist is asking, “What rights do you need to buy?”

Our Forests – Digital.jpg
by Jennifer Miller

Uh, what? Now, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet, but this is always, always, always the time for contacts. It doesn’t matter if it’s your best friend, or your sister’s boss, or your grandma. Get a contract written. Be clear what is expected from the start, and who gets what rights, and what those rights cost. This can, and has, saved many a proverbial rear-end in the past. Authors don’t often think, “Well, this one will end up on the bestseller list, and get turned into eighteen movies, and will sell millions of action figures, and t-shirts at Hot Topic.” But… sometimes, just sometimes, this actually happens. Research some the high-grossing current authors and you will soon realize that they rarely knew something was going to make it big. Knowing who owns the art for what purposes is a big deal when this sort of thing happens, and the only thing worse than being enemies with your artist is fighting each other in court. Don’t do this. Be friends, and write contracts. If you need help with this, there are a lot of websites out there than can help you, and some even provide contract templates. When in doubt, ask a copyright lawyer.

Communication is always important. This is where an artist-writer relationship can be made or broken. Of course, be polite for goodness’ sakes… but don’t waffle. Be clear about your expectations from the start, what you want, when you want it, and if you want fries with that. Expect your artist to do the same; if you need to, ask them to please describe the process so you know what to expect. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and remember that even if you have a very clear mental image of the artwork, the artist cannot read your mind. You are a writer, by George! Use your words to paint them a picture so they can paint you something you are pleased with.

When author and artist really mesh and have a good time with the process, it is a beautiful thing. Mutually helping one another through all parts of the process, and beyond, is part of the wonderful community building that bonds creative people together and keeps them from going completely off the deep end. We are the Brotherhood of Underpaid Creative Persons, darn it, so let’s make something wonderful together!

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Author, Jess Owen

A follow-up by Jess Owen to yesterday’s post on typography.

When I set out to self publish Song of the Summer King, I knew I wanted everything to look “traditional.” I wanted it to look polished and professional, like something put out by one of the Big Six. I invested in the artwork by hiring a freelance artist who’s well known for her fantasy, wild life and particularly gryphon artwork. I invested in an editor with a great track record who I believed understood my goals for the story. I had plans for a big Kickstarter fund raiser, and wanted to hire a printer instead of going POD.

With all that done, somehow, I still thought it was fine to slap some letters on the front in a free, “medieval-looking” font, and call it a day. Fortunately my friends had my back. Josh Essoe sent my cover art around for some critiques from some pros, and very honestly told me, “You’ve invested too much in this book not to get some professional lettering on the cover. Talk to Moses Siregar; he’s put the same kind of effort into his work.”

So thanks to the power of author friend networking, I contacted said successful self-publisher and he gave me the name of his typographer, Terry Roy. She seemed excited about the book, I liked her portfolio, and so she put together a package deal to not only do lettering on the front of the e-book and the hardback edition, but to handle the interior layout and format the books for printing and uploading to Amazon. And thank goodness she did.

I think sometimes we self-published authors think we have to do everything ourselves. But just as I would hire a professional to tune up my car, I now know the value of investing in professionals to wield their magic over my stories. It’s a matter of time, energy, and expertise.

I’m so happy with the final product and with the team that fell together to make it happen. I truly believe all writers need a master mind group to make their work really stand out, and I know for my book, I couldn’t have asked for more. Below you’ll find my cover before and after the professional typography and design.

AFTER

BEFORE

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Illustrator & Typographer, Terry Roy

Guest Post by Terry Roy

Many authors go on the extravagant hunt for the best cover art out there. And while cover art is an important part of creating an attractive selling package (your book), bad typography can ruin it. Without typography, it’s not a book cover. It’s just a photo, an illustration, a painting.

What is typography? Glad you asked! It’s the art of arranging letters and words attractively on a page. Whether or not that page is a book cover or an interior narrative page, a billboard on a highway or stamped on a grocery bag you take home from the market. Most professional graphic designers are trained in this. Many others creating book covers nowadays are not. If you’re hiring someone to do a cover (to me, this means the complete package), or add typography to the image you want as the background for your cover, make sure you look at their portfolio and like what you see. Forget the pictures. Make sure you like what you see even if the titles and author names were on solid color backgrounds. Great typography design can carry itself, images added or not.

I can write pages and pages on this, but to keep it simple, I’ll distill it to basics.

1. When you commission artwork or start your image search, remember you need to display large, visible type on top of it.
Too many people sacrifice the visibility of the book title or author name so they don’t cover up the art. In my opinion–that priority should be the other way around. The art shouldn’t interfere with the stand-out impact of the author’s name and the title of the book.

2. The typeface you choose for the title can set the mood and tone of the book from the start. Choose wisely.
There’s a reason that many thrillers, spy stories, and suspense novels use a simple headline font like “Impact”—it denotes urgency, demands attention. Distressed or goth fonts get used on gritty, post-apocalyptic stories or dark vampire stories. (Be careful here, many distressed fonts won’t “pop” without a lot of help and unless you are a bestselling author, you don’t want your title blending in with the background art.) Fancy script fonts with lots of loops and swirls remind us of romantic invitations–so we see some of that on romance novels. These examples are generic. But please, don’t just pick a font because you think it’s cool. It has to match the story, and feel right with the title. Font sites often give you the option of typing in your title so you can preview it as you scroll through pages of choices. Just try it—see how it changes the mood and tone with each new look. (I spend hours trying fonts on titles, like some people try on clothes.)

Art & Design by Terry Roy.

Make sure your font choice–or the font choice of your cover designer– is legal to use commercially.
Please respect fonts tagged “for personal or private use only” and do NOT use them on your book covers. Often fonts at free sites were created to emulate a copyrighted, restricted-use font face. It is NOT okay to use these fonts on your books or anything you put out for sale or download in a public marketplace. (“Bleeding Cowboy”, which I see on a lot of vampire or paranormal books, is a good example. Lots of people are using it, but unless they got a licensed copy, or written permission from the designer, they shouldn’t be.) Go to a site like Fontspace and use the “Commercial Use Friendly” filter in the search. That way, free fonts that are cool to use on book covers and other projects will show up, without tempting you with the Personal Use Only fonts.

3. Visibility and Readability.
Now that you have the right font for your genre and title, and another for your name (a simple, non-fancy font will do in most cases) the third important thing is to make sure it’s clear, sharp, and readable. Remember, in the online market for both e-books and paperbacks, the reader is either spotting you first in a tiny ad or a tiny thumbnail image in a New Releases list. Even if your cover art loses fidelity at thumbnail size, the title, at least (if not also the author name) should stand out sharp and clear. Color choice is important here. It’s hard to go wrong with the classic choice of black (offset by white), or white (offset by black) when you’re just not sure. No matter what color you choose, contrast with the background is paramount. There should be enough contrast to “pop” that title even in small sizes.

Now… go out there and practice! One final tip I’ll leave with you today: study the bestsellers of your genre from the big name publishers. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, copy one of these covers. Import it into your graphics program and make it a locked layer. On a layer on top of that, challenge yourself to duplicate layout of the title, authorname, and any other print. You don’t have to match the typeface exactly, just get one close enough. (In graphic design courses, students are often challenged to duplicate the layouts on ads and product packaging–it’s a great hands-on learning exercise.) Even if you don’t want to tackle your cover typography on your own, studying what’s hot from the big pubs in your genre can give you a better eye for getting quality work from the person you hire to do it for you.

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Guest Post by Natasha Fondren

The question I get asked most by my clients is this: “What else, other than the text, should I put in my book?”

POD books and eBooks can handle extra pages, images, color, fonts, and content without any cost (up to a certain point, and even with Kindle, it’s marginal). When you’re done writing your book, you want to add content that will first, sell your book, and second, sell your other books.

SELL THIS BOOK

In eBooks, the front matter serves only one purpose: to sell this book to your readers.

In bookstores, readers check out books in this order:

1. They catch sight of the cover.
2. They turn it over and read the back cover.
3. They skim through the appropriate ad pages at the beginning.
4. They turn to the first page of the text and read a bit.

With eBooks, it goes more like this:

1. They catch sight of the cover on the website.
2. They click on the title.
3. They check out the average rating.
4. They read the synopsis and maybe skim the reviews.
5. They download a sample.

It’s important to note that once they download a sample, they haven’t yet bought it. You still have to sell your book with the sample: the first 10% of your book.

CONTENT OF THE SAMPLE

In a traditional book, the opening consists of ad pages, half-title page, title page, copyright page, list of other books by the author, dedication page, epigraph, table of contents, and sometimes acknowledgments.

In an eBook, we want to get rid of everything that doesn’t sell your book because it takes up space in that first 10% of your sample. First, the half-title page, a holdover from printing processes, is completely unnecessary.

The copyright page will not sell your book, nor will it magically prevent piracy. Send it to the back. The acknowledgments, likewise, should be sent to the back.

The list of other books by the author will only sell this book if you have a long list that proves you to be an author who’s had some practice at this. When in the front matter, this list does not sell those books; it only tells the prospective reader that you’ve some experience under your belt.

This list is better at the end, after they finish the book, when they’ll be looking for their next read. Probably they’ve already seen on the website that you’ve written other books, if you have.

The dedication? As interesting as it is to you, it should only stay up front if it’s truly going to hook the reader into buying your book.

The table of contents is accessed through a menu button, so it’s unnecessary to put it up front unless it sells your book, as is the case in nonfiction (telling the reader what is contained in the book) or in some fiction, where the chapter titles are so interesting that they hook the reader.

So what does that leave?

1. Ad pages
2. Title page
3. Epigraph
4. Text

Ad pages go first, and these should be an invitation to the reader. While you should take advantage of this opportunity, do not let the ad pages dominate your sample; you want to sell your book to readers, then give them enough of your content to hook them into your story.

There are several potential items that can go in your ad pages (I don’t advise using them all!):

• Reviews: If you have some exceptional reviews from respectable sources, or some funny, tongue-in-cheek reviews, then put two or three at the beginning. More than that, and you’re crowding out your sample.
• Synopsis: Reminding the readers what the book is about is not only a good sales tool, but it’s also one of the ways the human mind learns: big picture to little details. When readers sit down to a book, they want to know what it’s about. While this information may be on the website, they may look at the sample days or weeks later.
• Excerpt: A short excerpt, maybe one or two paragraphs, can work really well. There is an art to selecting just the right paragraph or two–make sure to get lots of feedback from your friends!
• Letter to reader: This is a bit of an old-fashioned technique that I’ve only seen in romance books. It’s been used quite a bit, so it must have some effect. If you pick this, please make sure your note to the reader is super good!

The title page sets the tone for the book, so embed a nice font and have a care for the design. The epigraph, as well, can set the tone for the book.

The text should be inviting: a nice chapter header, a dropcap, possibly some styling in the opening few words all help pull the reader into reading your text. Book design is important!

A PROBLEM WITH AUTO-CONVERSION

If you upload a Word document or use a converter to make a Kindle book, then when a reader opens your book, it will open to Chapter 1, skipping all front matter, ad pages, and even the prologue.

If you hire a professional, they’ll make sure your book opens where you want it to–except the cover. On Kindle, the book generally refuses to open to the cover, unfortunately. (Please do write them and complain, though! Maybe they’ll change it!)

THE BACK MATTER

From the very second your reader reads the last sentence of your book, you need to sell your next book, or your backlist.
The back matter can contain:

Thank You: First up, it’s nice to thank your readers. Make it short and sweet; this is not an about-the-author page. Perhaps a sentence or two informing about (and linking to) what you’ve got in the back matter for the reader. For example:

“Thank you for reading Great American Novel! I hope you enjoyed it. A list of my other books is on the next page, and then the first chapter of my upcoming novel, Pulitzer Prize Novel, to be released in the spring of 2014.”

Second, offer a link to a very simple html sign-up form for your newsletter. (You do have a newsletter list, right?) This should be simple and ugly, easy enough for e-ink browsers to handle, such as my newsletter (free book on Indie Book Production coming soon to all subscribers!). Please note that this doesn’t have to be your only newsletter sign-up page, but for this purpose, you should stick to a sign-up page that can be handled by the worst of browsers.

A List Of Your Other Books: This can go before or after the next section.

Your Next Book: Like the sample, this should be in three parts:

1. An image of the cover.
2. A quick synopsis or blurb of the book that hooks the reader.
3. An excerpt–you can make this substantial, such as the complete first chapter or two.

Other Ideas: I’ve seen some authors put a miniature version of their website in the back, starting with a home page that links to each section of the content that follows. Remember, the page count is nearly limitless, so be creative and give to the reader, and hopefully they’ll give profits back to you!

AND THEN . . .

After that, you can put an about-the-author page, so they know who you are. And then, (finally!) all the stuff you took out of the front matter that doesn’t sell this book or your next book.

Natasha Fondren is the founder of the eBook Artisans. Whether you’re a traditionally-published author looking to make an out-of-print book available, an indie author releasing a self-published eBook, or a publisher looking to make a backlist available, the eBook Artisans^SM is passionate about making your print book or eBook a welcoming and beautiful experience for your readers.

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Author, Joshua Simon

There are many things an indie writer needs to consider when looking for an editor. Is the editor capable of providing you with the service you need:  content, line, or copy editing? Does the editor have reputable references? Based on the sample, does the editor’s style suit your own? Can you afford the editor’s service?

I think every writer needs to carefully consider each of the above questions during the selection process.  Though this topic is crucial to every writer, it is one that has been beaten to death.  So, I thought I would discuss what I feel every writer needs to consider after the selection process is complete. Below are my top Dos and Don’ts when working with an editor.

Dos:

1. Do agree to terms ahead of time.

Be clear on expectations before work begins.

Do you want only that content edit or were you also expecting a copy edit as well?

Do you want the editor to provide a second round of edits in order to proof read your work after you’ve made the previous suggestions provided to you?

Do you need the editor to help you with writing the back cover, marketing materials, a press release, and text for your website?

Most editors probably won’t do all of the above but some might if you’ve discussed the scope of work ahead of time.  Don’t expect an editor to provide extra services (no matter how little) for free after the agreed upon work is completed. Their time is valuable and they have other clients besides you.

2. Do meet your deadlines.

As I said, you are not your editor’s only client.  The time to schedule an editor is when your book is nearly complete, especially if you’re writing your first book.

Find out what your editor’s schedule is like and how long they think it will take to edit the book, and then plan accordingly. It is not unreasonable to wait weeks or months before an editor can start on your book. Expect the overall editing process to take several weeks or longer once the editor begins work. Variations will exist based on the length of the book, how good of a writer you are, and how many projects the editor works on at once.

As a side note, after you’ve had some experience in completing projects it will be easier to schedule an editor before actual completion.  Even then, I’d recommend giving yourself several weeks or even months of cushion.  It is much nicer knowing you’ve finished early and can get ahead on your next project rather than scrambling to complete something at the last minute and turning in shoddy work.

3. Do ask for clarification.

Any editor worth their salt will clarify questions you might have on their suggestions. Otherwise, how can you determine if it is a valid change?  If an editor is unwilling to communicate with you in this way after giving you the manuscript back, I’d question using that person again.

4. Do be prompt with payment.

But what happens if it costs more than I originally expected?  Too bad.

If you go to a car dealership and they give you an estimate for a brake job that later increases by several hundred dollars because things were worse than expected, can you get away with not paying them? Of course not. Can you imagine if your boss decided not to pay you promptly or not at all, and how that would affect your life?

For some editors, this might be their only source of income.  Therefore, don’t be late with their money.

If you decide their services were overpriced and not what you expected then the only thing you can do is not use them for future work.

5. Do remember that a suggestion for change is not a demand for one.

As the writer, this is your story.  You need to be satisfied with it more than anyone else. Make changes only if you agree it improves the quality of the work. If you can’t make that decision on your own, bring in someone else to give you a second opinion.

I rarely disagree with my editor, but there have been a few times I decided against making his suggested changes.  This is partly because I had received differing opinions from my beta-readers and partly because the change would affect later parts of the story in works he had not yet edited.

Don’ts

1. Don’t hand over a mess.

Your editor should not be the first person to read your manuscript besides yourself. Employ both alpha and beta-readers.  They will help you smooth out many problems long before your editor gets a hold of your story, especially in the way of content.  If nothing else, this step will help reduce the costs to you. The more time your editor spends cleaning up your mess, the more they will charge.

2. Don’t expect your editor to do all the work.

Your editor shouldn’t have to re-write your book. They will rewrite sentences as needed, but they aren’t supposed to write chapters or sections for you (unless you’ve agreed they will act as a ghost writer).

3. Don’t take it personally.

This is all a learning experience and a way to make you a better writer. I’ve improved significantly with each work I’ve turned into my editor, and a contributing factor to my improvement has been his feedback on each story.

Remember, an editor’s reputation will be held against the quality of your work as well. You don’t want an editor to blow smoke up your rear.  You want an editor to be honest about what is good and what isn’t so your story and characters can shine.

4. Don’t be a jerk to your editor.

Like everything else in life, be professional. If I really have to explain what this means then you probably have bigger problems to worry about than everything I’ve mentioned above.

5. Don’t lose sight of your ultimate goal.

You want a great book!

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Rhiannon Frater

An Interview with Rhiannon Frater

Rhiannon is a successful independent horror writer who found her way to Tor through an interesting confluence of events. She was kind enough to take time out of her weekend and sit down for an interview.

Joshua Essoe: How long did it take you to get the steam going in your career? Did you ever feel like giving up?

Rhiannon Frater: I’ve been writing since I was a little girl, so I guess it took all my life to get to the point where I am presently. The journey wasn’t just about getting a big break and a publishing deal, but also developing my voice and finding my genre. For a long time I thought I was going to be a mystery writer like Agatha Christie. I was rather surprised when horror ended up being my niche.

JE: Did you ever consider giving up?

RF: I did for about nine years. My husband helped me get back on track. Being an author is a very tough business. You have to have a thick skin, a good support system, and a lot of ambition along with the talent to write, of course.

JE: Of course. Take that one as a given and work on the rest! Who did you learn from, or are you self-taught? Did you take workshops to hone your craft?

I read a lot of books and wrote a lot of books to discover my writing voice. I have also learned a lot from reading the editing notes from my editor at Tor and my indie editor. I also learned a lot about plot structure and character development from being an avid fan of Alfred Hitchcock and Joss Whedon. I’ve been told many times that I write cinematically. Readers tell me that when they finish one of my books they feel like they just watched a movie.

JE: You started indie, you put your books out yourself and collected a following with your As the World Dies Trilogy. Eventually Tor took notice. What was the process you went through to produce your books? Did you hire professional editing, cover art, and book design?

RF: As The World Dies started out as an online serial. It gained a huge following, much to my surprise. The original fans were the ones who wanted to have the series published so they could have physical copies on their bookshelves. It was with their encouragement that I tried very hard to find an agent or a publisher who would be interested in my zombie epic. Instead, I was met with rejection. My husband approached me about self-publishing utilizing the new media. I was reluctant at first, but after a lot of research we felt it was the best way to go about it. A friend did the cover art, I formatted the interior, my husband did the layout of the full cover, and some friends helped with the editing. This was back in 2008 so there weren’t the resources available then that there are now.
I’ve learned so much since those early days. I now have an editor who works with Permuted Press edit my indie novels, I have a professional formatter, and my cover artists are top notch.

JE: I loved the updated covers that you and Tor released. How did things change when you signed with Tor? What are the pros and cons of Indy vs. trad publishing in your experience?

RF: Well, the purchase of the trilogy allowed me to quit my day job and give the full-time writing gig a shot, but what keeps me writing full-time are my self-published novels. I have only seen one royalty statement since the books were published by Tor, which is the norm with big publishers. It’s my monthly royalty payments from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook Creation Exchange, and Createspace (trade paperbacks) that pays my bills and keeps me happily writing at home. So even though the bigger lump payments come from the big publisher, the more consistent monthly earnings are from my indie works.
Creatively, the indie side of things is much more in my court. I can write a very long novel with no worries of a word count restriction. I can write whatever I want to write next and not worry about writing a synopsis, summary, etc., to pitch to my editor. The interior design, cover art, and layout are things I have full control over with my indie novels. Tor has been really kind with taking my suggestions for the covers of the As The World Dies Trilogy, but they have final say.
Both publishing paths have pros and cons. I happen to enjoy doing both, that’s why I’m a hybrid author.

JE: You’ve achieved what many indy writers strive for, that big publisher staring you in the face and telling you you’re good enough. First of all, it must have felt amazing. Second, do you think it’s necessary? What do you think of the gatekeepers and what is your advice for new authors trying to decide what route to take, and what steps along that route?

RF: In my case it has definitely been worth it to traditionally publish. The initial advance money gave me the freedom to pursue a full-time career. I have also enjoyed the editing process with my editor at Tor. I’ve learned a lot from her. Because the books were published by Tor, Publishers Weekly reviewed The First Days and it received a Starred Review. Also, many people who have never heard of me gained access to my books because they were on the shelves of local bookstores.
What’s nice about self-publishing is that the books that Tor may not want can still find their way onto the e-readers and bookshelves of readers. Big publishers have to buy what they feel will sell to a wide audience. I may come up with an idea that they think is awesome, but won’t sell. Those books don’t die in the back of a writer’s closet anymore.
The best advice I can give up-and-coming writers is in the F.A.Q. on my website.

JE: How big a part is the social aspect to the success of a writer’s career? Did you go to cons, workshops, seminars, meet particular people, pitch, plead or beg?

RF: Everyone’s path to success in writing is different. I know of people who have taken every writing class offered in their area, traveled to workshops, seminars, etc.… They even know a lot of writers, agents, and publishers from constantly networking, but they don’t have a book deal. There are also people who write their first book, send it to an agent, and have a seven figure deal two weeks later. There is no set path. There is no magic key.
In my case I self-published, a producer saw the cover of my second book and thought the character looked like his wife, he bought it, loved it, optioned the series, and the next thing I know I have an entertainment lawyer referring me to a literary agent in New York. I had an agent by Thanksgiving, she pitched in January, and I had a deal with Tor in early March.

JE: That’s amazing. Your latest, Pretty When She Kills, came out last month. How is it being received, and what is your next big project?

RF: I actually returned to the old vampires. My vampires are scary and kill people, but holy relics and sunlight are deadly. The series has been gaining quite a fervent following since True Blood gave us back the scary bloodsuckers. The reviews have been really awesome and I hope the third book will bring a fitting end to the trilogy.
I’m wrapping up my latest project for Tor right now called Dead Spots. It’s a really bizarre horror novel that I absolutely love. Once I turn that in, I’m probably going to return to the Pretty When She Dies universe and write the last book in the trilogy, along with a side novella.

JE: What is Dead Spots going to be about?

RF: It’s a horror novel, obviously. Not vampires, zombies, or anything like that, but I’ll let Tor describe it.

JE: Sounds intriguing. I love the title. Now, for the serious. Complete this sentence: “Like I said…”

RF: …kill all the things.

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Guest Post by Jess Owen

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter yet, as soon as you finish this article you’re going to be inundated with emails from old friends, family members and distant colleagues asking you to support their Kickstarter campaign. Just wait.

So what is it? A streamlined, user-friendly website to facilitate an idea called crowd funding. The folks at Kickstarter believe that, “…a good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide,”* . . . and gain support. Monetary support. What began as a grass roots fund raising method for indie music bands has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon that gives individuals the financial power to see any creative project through to completion, and gain a tribe of new friends and fans in the process.

Artists, musicians, authors, inventors, restaurateurs, film makers, you name it, Kickstarter supports it.

All you need is one tangible project, a timeline, a bag of goodies to hand out at the end, and you are ready to dive in. Don’t forget a “can-do attitude.”

I used Kickstarter to fund the hardback printing of my debut novel, Song of the Summer King. Rather than turn to POD, I decided to research printers in order to gain a wide view of all available options to the modern self-publisher. While I waffled on how best to go about paying for and distributing my book, a friend mentioned Kickstarter.

This is how it works: an individual creates a project. This must be a tangible goal with an end date and a product (like an album, a book, an art show; no “fund my life” projects). For me, it was printing the hardback book. A traditionally published author might want to create a whole bunch of snazzy schwag for her launch event, but not have enough funds. Kickstarter can do that too. Once you create your project, you figure how much money you need, set the financial goal, give yourself a time limit within the maximum of 6o days, and launch! (For more detailed information on the mechanics, read through the Kickstarter School on their web page.)

I raised $9,000 in thirty days, with an initial goal of $6,000. Here’s how I did it.

I found my audience. It is critical that you know where to find the people who will actually want to read your book. If this is starting to sound like every other writing article on marketing, it should. If you don’t understand marketing yet, it will be difficult for you to succeed with Kickstarter or any other fund raising program. Kickstarter is basically a way for readers to pre-order your book, plus fun and prizes. So know where your peeps are, and how to get their attention. I write fantasy, and for years have also been a minor member of the fantasy art community. Still, this was a place to start. I began to draw a lot more gryfons and wolves when I knew I was going to self-publish, and with that work, I started to attract fans, fellow artists and readers with those interests.

In other words, I built a platform. Start doing that now, no matter what stage you’re in.

Next, involve your family and friends. My family and friends were my biggest supporters. I hope yours are too. If they aren’t, go to your chosen family, your good friends, your writing buddies, your neighbors, church—whoever supports you. Don’t be ashamed that you’re asking for money, either. Be proud! Be excited! You have created something, or you’re certainly about to, and the people who love you will be excited for you.

Have a plan. I had a plan to give interest a boost at the beginning of each week of my campaign. The first week was family and friends. The second week, I had artists post pieces of special promotional works centered around my book. Yes, I had to pay for them, but I was supporting other artists. Also, their work was better than a simple advertisement, because their 10,000 interested fans were suddenly looking at beautiful pieces of art about my book, with links back to Kickstarter. The next week I was in my hometown newspapers, and after that, I appealed to bloggers. It doesn’t matter what your plan involves, as long as it targets your audience base.

As far as figuring out rewards and timeline, I researched other projects. Art featured heavily in my rewards, because I’m close to the fantasy art community. I picked a cover artist who appeals to my target audience, and offered prints of her work at several reward tiers. I was also surprised that my own artwork was a relatively popular reward option.

Choose rewards that are pertinent to your story. Got a cool sci-fi novel? Get nifty badges or buttons or figure out a way to do super slick holographic bookmarks. Think of what you’d want in a grab bag from your favorite author, and offer that stuff as rewards. Study what other publishing projects are offering. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just figure out what’s already working.

Remember to factor the cost of rewards into your funding goal. This is a mistake I made, and I’ll admit it without shame. (The point is I’m wiser now . . .) Factor in rewards, shipping, and the percentage that Kickstarter takes out for processing credit cards. I asked for $6,000, raised $9,000, and walked away with $8,110 because of the processing fees and people whose pledges didn’t go through. I had just enough to cover my project.

Aside from all the technical information, what I will say is what I think Kickstarter, and websites like it, mean for authors—particularly, self-published authors. Many aspiring authors have sometimes said or thought, “If I could just get my work out to the people, they would love it.” Well now’s the time to saddle up. You can use Kickstarter to raise money for that professional editor, cover artist, layout and lettering designer, and any other initial costs associated with self-publishing.

We are in the Information Age. Anyone who understands how to move information and get it to the masses will succeed. Writers who can track down and target their fan base will sell books. Now, that fan base can invest even more love and support by actually helping you publish your work. The psychological power of active community support is going to be huge in the near future. Your fans are not just fans anymore. They’re investors. They’re partners. They’re going to be excited for more than just your next book, they’re going to be excited for you. And that is priceless.

Kickstarter and other websites that facilitate crowd funding are about more than just money. They’re about community. They help you find your fans, your friends, your colleagues. They help you build your tribe. The people who pledge to your project don’t just want to buy your book. They want to help worthy dreams come true and watch people succeed. And they want to be a part of it. Even if you’re an independent author, there’s no reason you have to do it alone.

To me, that’s pretty darn exciting.

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Guest post by Eric Edstrom

On December 24th, 2011, I clicked “save and publish” on Amazon’s KDP platform to launch my very first novel, Undermountain. A few hours later the book appeared for sale on Amazon.

Relief and satisfaction washed through me. I had realized a life-long dream, a biggie from the bucket list. I had done it. I’d written and published a novel.

I relaxed and smiled. No more pages of edits to go through, no irritating “track changes” issues to deal with from an editor, no more “when will your little book be out?” questions from doubters.

I’ve done this twice since then. In January of 2012 I published a little non-fiction ebooklet about writing lyrics for the Nashville music scene. And on July 1^st I released Afterlife, the sequel to Undermountain.

I don’t claim to be an expert. If anything, I’m an advanced beginner. But I do have enough experience to offer insights into what has and has not worked for me as an indie author.

1. Goodreads.

Although many authors fear Goodreads due to trolls torpedoing authors’ books, I’ve found a friendly and welcoming community there. I wouldn’t have half the reviews I have without them. There are a number of Goodreads groups (basically discussion forums) with dedicated topics for “Authors Requesting Reviews” or ARR. Join one, read the ARR rules, introduce yourself, offer up free copies, and be patient. And it’s pretty much a no brainer, give a free e-copy of your book to anyone who promises to review it. It worked!

2. Hiring editing and proofreading services.

I worked with two editors. The first one did an okay job, but mostly just pointed out that my book was crap. I rewrote a bunch of it and then worked with Joshua Essoe, who helped me beat it into shape. After that I hired a proofreader. Notice I’m not mentioning who did that. I should have done an extra proofreading round after that. It worked. Lesson learned: ask for references.

3. Sourcing cover art through Crowdspring.com.

This worked, but it made the cost higher due to Crowdspring’s listing fees. I listed a project there, set my price, and then waited for designers to submit concepts. I gave feedback and encouragement to some of them, and eventually chose the cover you see for Undermountain (which is awesome according to everyone). Since then I’ve worked directly with the artist on the sequels. It worked! Lesson learned: It’s cheaper to work with artists directly. Find unknowns on deviantart.com and conceptart.org.

4. Hiring services to prepare my manuscript to feed into Smashword’s infamous meatgrinder conversion software.

I did this for Undermountain because I was exhausted and couldn’t face reading Smashword’s style guide. I paid ebookartisandesign.com $50 to do it. It worked!

5. Preparing my manuscript for the meatgrinder myself for book 2.

It’s actually not that hard to do if you clear space in your calendar and mind to just do it. It worked!

6. Hire Createspace services to create the interior layout for the POD version of my book.

I got my POD book done and ready for sale. It worked . . . but I was extremely disappointed with the speed and quality of their service. Their mistakes added three weeks to the process.

7. Create the interior layout using Word for Mac.

I did a superior quality layout for my second book in about four hours by following a tutorial I found online. If you’ve done your own prepwork for the Smashwords meatgrinder, you have the perfect starting point, BTW. It worked!

8. Dictating the first draft.

Once I got over the idea that dictation wouldn’t work for me and just did it, I found that it was insanely fast and the quality was good. I wrote a blog post on this. It worked!

9. Reserving an editor time slot before the book has been written started.

I did this on my second book because I knew Joshua’s schedule was filling up. I treated this date the same way I would a deadline for any other editor. I worked backward from that to figure out my schedule. I worked forward from that date to figure out my launch date. As a result, I launched an awesome book on time. It totally worked!

10. Tweet spamming my book.

I couldn’t help myself at first. I was so proud of my book and thought all fifty-seven of my followers would rush to Amazon and buy it. I do tweet my buy links occasionally, but for the most part I’m trying to build relationships on twitter. I have no evidence that I’ve sold a single copy due to tweeting. Tweet spamming: Fail!

11. Being afraid to push my book.

I just got done saying I was a Twitter spammer, but in real life I wouldn’t bring it up with anyone. Fail! Lesson learned: You’re not selling your book so much as you are selling yourself. Some people are good at this, some are like me. I can say with 100% confidence that I never sold a book to someone who didn’t know it existed.

12. Advertising on Facebook.

Fail! I sold nothing. I’m not saying it couldn’t work, just that it didn’t work for me. Why? Because I had no idea what I was doing. Advertising is an skill, and to do it right you really need to A/B test everything and tweak headlines.

13. Amazon Select.

Fail! (for me) I gave away thousands of free ebooks. There was no post giveaway sales boost and I got only one review as a result (it was very positive, BTW). I think my absence from other platforms set back my growth there and my sales on the big A did not go down once I left the Select program.

14. Creating a printed version of my book to boost sales.

Fail! I’ve given away way more copies than I’ve sold of my POD book. From a return on time/investment standpoint, POD was not worth it for Undermountain. And yet . . . there is nothing in the world like holding that book. Now that I know how to do interior layout myself I will continue to do them. Lesson learned: when you hire your cover artist, make sure they agree to tweak final dimensions for the wrap-around cover and placement of back cover text, etc. The issue is that you won’t know the spine dimensions until you know how many pages the book will be. And you won’t know that until the book is finished and the interior layout is complete.

15. Create an awesome book trailer that will go viral, resulting in huge sales and movie options.

Fail! I did all the work on my awesome trailer myself. It was far more expensive than it had to be because I licensed stock video and sounds from istockphoto.com and pond5.com. I already owned Final Cut and had video editing experience, so at least that didn’t cost me extra. Lesson learned: having an awesome book trailer is its own reward.

16. Speaking to a bunch of eighth graders at a local school.

It worked! Many were very interested in buying my book. Lesson learned: Make sure your your POD book is ready. This may be different now, but not one of the 100+ kids in the audience owned an ereader at the time. Due to Createspace design services slowitude, I did not have any inventory on hand. Fail!

17. Ringing up sales by obsessively refreshing the KDP, Pubit, Smashwords, and Writing Life dashboards.

Fail! I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that this is ineffective. If it was, I would be the best-selling writer in the history of the world.

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With so many people officially on the self-publishing bandwagon, there have been a lot of proclamations going around to the effect that grand success as a self-published author is no longer possible. Even our own guest, David Dalglish, a paragon of self-pubbing success if ever there was one, has admitted that a significant factor of his triumph was timing. And now, it seems, the moment has passed.

The secret is out. The vast sales a few authors achieved in the early days of ebook self-pubbing led to an avalanche of me-too-ers. The market is flooded, and now the chance to have your book become a blockbuster requires you to compete with horde upon horde of writers who had the same idea as you. The picture painted by the self-publishing statistics floating around on the interwebs seems a bleak one indeed. Having seen it, some people may even decide that it is not worth the struggle.

But when taken in context, nothing has really changed on that front, at least not in a negative way. According to a recent survey, the average yearly take of a self-published author was $10,000, with a majority making less than $500 a year. How is that a bad thing? Before self-publishing was a viable option, failure was much harsher. Failure meant no money and no readers. I would gladly take $500 a year and a paltry following over nothing at all.

I should also point out that I hate statistics as a guide to personal action. The reason is that it’s easy to look at a given pie chart and think, “Oh, I have a 78% chance of failing to achieve my goals, so I’m not going to bother.” But no graph can ever tell you who you are. You are you, and there is a 0% chance that you are anyone else. Always keep that in mind when looking at statistics that attempt to tell you what kind of life you will have and thus how to live it.

Besides, there are exceptional writers out there. Imagine if your favorite author had looked at the odds of getting published and said, “Meh. Not worth the risk.” They would have never taken the plunge; they would have filed their TPS reports, always wondering, “Could I have been a success?” And the world, deprived of their creations, would have been a dimmer place. Perhaps you are one of those outliers. Perhaps you are really as good as your mom says you are.

And if you are that good, if you are the next Patrick Rothfuss, Stephen King, or [insert favorite author here], and you quit now, I am going to be very, very pissed off at you.

Hopefully, none of this means anything to you, because deep down, you are a writer. And writers write, no matter what anybody else says.

Never surrender.

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It has been a busy and wonderful month here at Fictorians.com. To finish off our Publishing Month of Madness, Brandon Sanderson was kind enough to agree to take some time out of his crazy schedule for a short question and answer style blog post.

Here it is in all its glory.

Joshua Essoe: It used to be that producing a book a year was sufficient, even productive, but now it seems if you’re not getting at least two or three books out there every year to feed the cavernous maw of impatient e-readers, you’re too slow and the tide will just pass you by. What do you think of the difference between e-books and traditional publishing?

Brandon Sanderson: Authors are doing some interesting things in e-books. One thing you’re noticing is that in e-books—probably for pricing reasons—the books are growing shorter and coming out faster. It’s moving closer to a much older model, where you would release serialized editions of books that were more like episodes rather than an entire novel. Some of the market is going that way. I think it’s just a different model; I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be the only model. It’s just a new and interesting thing that e-books are doing.

JE: Is there a pressure that has developed from traditional publishers for their authors to be pushed towards more production? When should an author consider self-publishing instead of trying to land a book deal in NY? Should one self-publish while trying to land that book deal and use potential sales numbers as part of the pitch?

BS: I don’t feel that there has been any push from New York to publish books at any different speed at all. In fact, one of the main reasons to publish with New York as opposed to self-publishing is if you are an author who doesn’t write at least one book a year. If we’re to take The Way of Kings as an example, there’s no way that I’m going to be producing 400,000-word epic fantasies as fast as a lot of the self-published writers can put out books. There’s no way that anyone could have made that book at that speed. It’s a book that takes a year, maybe eighteen months to write. So for long epic fantasies, New York certainly has some things going for it.

One of the reasons that it’s really good to publish fast and short when you’re doing self-publishing is that you don’t have any sort of marketing push behind you. You don’t have bookstore shelf presence, which is one of the major forms of marketing—people seeing your book there on the shelves. Word of mouth is always the most important thing, but it becomes even more important for the self-published writer. Publishing quickly and getting a lot of books out helps to get your name in more places in the market and helps to push some of that momentum through. That seems to be the key way to make it as a self-published writer.

When would I self-publish versus New York-publish? I would not abandon either model. Self-publishing has proved itself so viable recently that if I were a new writer, I would be looking at doing both at the same time. Maybe taking the longer, more epic-style books to New York and doing the faster-paced, more thriller-style books online, and seeing what works best.

So the expansion of the e-book market gives you more places to go. That said, if you’re not a particularly fast writer, self-publishing is going to be a very hard route for you because everything I’ve seen—granted, I’m not an expert on this; there are places to go other than me for expertise—shows that being able to produce quickly is a key factor in being a successful self-published author in this market.

JE: How long does it take to be forgotten in this fickle book market, and what should an author be doing to prevent it?

BS: It depends on your method. What you’re getting at here is the balance between promotion and just writing the next book. That’s a balance authors have had to work with for decades, if not centuries—the idea being that promoting your book keeps it in people’s minds. Right now you can do that through engaging blog posts, being on Twitter, going to conventions, doing book signings, and all of these things. They take time. If they take so much time that you’re not writing your next book, then the question becomes are they worth it?

Do you want all your eggs in one basket? Do you want to write one book and then spend the whole year promoting it, trying to get it to take off, or do you want to, in that time, write three books and try to get one of the three to take off? I don’t think there’s any right answer; they’re both valid ways to go. You could end up writing that one book and, with your promotion, turn it into a big success that builds a name for you. Or you could be in hindsight wasting your time promoting it when it never ends up taking off.

So you have to find the right balance for yourself. Part of the question that I would ask myself is, are you an engaging blogger? Can you write interesting things on a topic and build a platform that is not just about “Buy my book!”? Would it be something interesting and fun for people to read, and can you leverage that to make people interested in your writing? If you can, then blogging would certainly be helpful to you.

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Well, Publishing Month is drawing to a close.  We’ve got just one week left to go.  Stay tuned for our  final Publishing Month guest bloggers, Brandon Sanderson and Gini Koch.

In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

Rachelle Gardner talks about what to expect from your agent in Understanding Your Agent.

Also on the topic of agents, Red Sofa Literary lists some basic mistakes writers make when approaching an agent in How to “win” over an agent.

Lois H Gresh discusses the necessity of submitting your work in Rewriting Treadmills: Traditional Publishing versus ePublishing.

Philip Goldberg talks about the benefits of traditional publishing in Who Needs Publishers? We All Do!

Writers In The Storm discusses how a writer’s business needs should affect his choice of publisher with Gettin’ Busy With It.

Dean Wesley Smith dispells a few common myths in The Secret Myth of Traditional Publishing.

The Intern discusses Five Signs You’re About to Land an Agent.

At The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively, Cheryl Shireman guest blogs about the prejudice against indie writers with Dear Traditionally Published Writer.

Rainy of the Dark looks at Just What Percentage of Book Sales are eBooks?

Ashley Barron discusses lessons learnt during the indie journey with A Self-Publisher’s Dilemma.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Moses Siregar III – So, You’re Considering Indie Publishing…

Nancy DiMauro and Colette Vernon - Women Writing the Weird: Publishing in an Anthology

Joshue Essoe – Editing Saved My Life. And It Could Save Yours

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Writers frequently ask me if an editor is really necessary. The answer is no. An editor is not necessary, an editor is essential.

Many indie authors say, “But, I can’t afford it.” The truth is, if you can’t afford it, then don’t publish a book. Something I think many indie authors tend to miss is that you guys are running a small business. You’re the boss and the employee and everything in between, and should expect a certain amount of upfront cost. Releasing a book before it’s ready because you won’t hire an editor or cover designer does more harm than good. It is better to wait and make sure that your book is as strong as you can make it before you throw it to the wolves.

Especially your first book. There are thousands and thousands of self-published books out there and they’re all inexpensive and easy to get. If a reader gets hold of it, finds a few spelling errors, a missed word here or there, and an abundance of passive voice, they’ll put your book down (or remove it from their e-reader) and just move on to the next thing. They’ll never give your potentially wonderful story a chance to be potentially wonderful—and there goes your chance for future sales to that reader. Think what your reaction would be as a reader. First impressions mean everything. That goes for your first book in a new series, your first book ever, your first chapter, your first page, your first sentence.

The New York Times has editors, TV news stations have editors, Vogue and Maxim have editors, all the publishing houses have editors. Why would successful businesses like those all use editors? There must be a reason. . . . Ah, yes. It is because they’re essential to a finely tuned, professional product.

An indie editor is different from a trad editor. The only person who pays an independent or freelance editor is you. The only person that editor is beholden to is you. Their job is to strengthen your words and your voice to help make your story as good as it can be. The way you want it. A good one will be enthusiastically in your corner, working to help make you a success. And you want them in your corner. You wouldn’t think of going into an MMA match without having had a trainer. You’d get killed. Likewise, you shouldn’t throw your darlings to those wolves without some ninja skillz.

An editor’s job is not to rewrite you. Writing is your job. Their job is to help you make that writing shine as brilliantly as possible.

And another huge difference between indie and trad editors? Between hiring your own editor and having one imposed on you? If you hate what they do, you don’t have to use it—any of it.

So what can your friendly neighborhood editor do for you? There are several forms of editing; copy or line, content, substantive, proof reading. We’ll focus on line and content which will be the most applicable and reasonable for an indie author.

A copy or line edit, as the name suggests, is a meticulous edit of each line in the text looking for missing and misspelled words, superfluous language and redundant phrases, mixed tenses, and all technical inconsistencies. Line editing is editing for tone, style and flow—focusing on polishing the author’s words to improve the overall effect and increase the impact of the writer’s message. And to make sure that horrible passive voice is not yammering all over your story. You don’t want readers to admire your writing. You want them to be so engaged by the story that they don’t notice your words.

A content edit is more involved. It is checking the story for logic holes, inconsistencies of plot and character, patching any holes in the fourth wall, finding spots in the story that are weak or don’t make sense, then suggesting possible solutions.

An editor’s job is to help you get the movie you see running in your head playing the same way in the heads of your readers. What makes a story work is an emotional connection with your readership. If you get that, they’ll love your book and they’ll love you.

A good content editor is not easy to find; there aren’t many out there who can tell you what’s wrong and offer solutions on how to fix it. So be careful. Get references, talk to people you trust or people with experience.

When you contact an editor be professional. Be prepared to send a sample. Be prepared to give the editor a deposit for reserving time for you. Be prepared to meet your deadlines so that you have time to do a couple passes on your own before handing it off. Not only will those passes make your editor happy, but it will make your wallet happy. Make sure you know what format the editor needs. For example, I use industry standard—I know how long an MS formatted to those specifications will take me to edit based on a five page sample.

What will amaze and appall editors of all shapes and sizes is that a large percentage of manuscripts submitted for review have not even basic formatting set correctly. It immediately gives the impression of laziness, that the author didn’t care enough to do a little research.

If you are curious what the vaunted Industry Standard looks like, read Vonda McIntyre’s handout. This is a good starting point, but keep in mind that the industry is in flux and many online submissions will vary from this. If they do, they’ll certainly state it in their submission guidelines. If not, always go with the old standard.

A good content editor will also be able to help you sculpt your story to best appeal to the audience for which it is targeted. Do you want to enrapture teenage girls? Or do you want men in their thirties on the edges of their seats? Knowing who you are writing for and what appeals to them is as important as having a wonderful story. Because what might be an amazing story to that thirty-five year old guy is almost certainly not going to appeal all that much to a sixteen year old girl.

So, all you indie authors out there, go out and find an editor you love (and hate—if the editor is any good you’ll curse their name more than a few times). Get that editor working for you, and let them help you and your business produce the best product possible.

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