Inside Joke

It may be that only those who have read my short story, The Only Sparkle, will get this one, but the comedic value makes it totally worth it. Saw this on Failblog a couple days ago:

I suspect she may be a vampire.

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Now With Extra Sparkle

In the spirit of Word of Mouth, I wanted to mention a recent development. A freelance editor contacted me after reading Fates' Motif, and wanted to help out. I've been interested in picking up an editor outside my circle for some time now. Not that my current, volunteer editors don't do an amazing job (they really do, especially for what I pay them), more that there is wisdom in involving an editor that doesn't know you very well. It's a whole different viewpoint that can really help you make sure your message is clear. Plus, the more eyes the merrier, says I.

In any case, freelance editing is super-expensive for a fledgling author of modest means (me). I write large stories (well over 100k words), and typical freelance rates can be found here. If you do the math, it works out to about a couple of pennies per word. Average. Basic copyediting. For my 150k word Fates' Motif, we're talking over $2,000. I simply don't have that cash.

Mr. John Albers at Prior to Print Proofreading was the editor that contacted me. If you check out his posted rates, they're pretty reasonable. Perhaps a little below the aforementioned average. More importantly to me, however, was the "project" option. He's willing to work with self-published authors. We discussed a myriad of different plans, but what I settled on was this.

First, I gave him The Only Sparkle. It's shorter, so not as much of an investment. It's also not released in print, so easy to update. He turned it around quickly and I just got a chance to review all the edits he made last weekend. The changes were uploaded today, and I think there is a definite improvement. Plus, we seem to be creatively on the same page.

If you have a first edition of TOS and would like a free second edition (with the edits), simply shoot me an email. I'm more than happy to hand out free updates. It'd be really cool if places like Amazon and B&N would auto-update a previous purchase, but I don't think it works like that.

All of the edits are cosmetic. That is, they make the writing smoother, but don't change anything about the story. That was one of my stipulations going into this, and John was on board with it.

Whenever I finish The Binder's Husband, I'm saving my pennies to hopefully be able to afford a full edit prior to publishing. That's goal number two. I may even look into setting up a Kickstarter project to help fund the editing. It would be simple, we'd shoot to cover the costs and free books to everyone who donates. Probably different tiers for things like electronic, print, and perhaps a special mention in the acknowledgements. Seems like a cool idea, but I'm a ways off from finishing the manuscript.

In the mean time, I'm dumping every penny from sales back into the projects. If one of my books takes off, I'll spend that money to give it a quick polish as well. I've contemplated doing it in increments, have John look at, say, the first 10k words and then do 10k chunks until it's done. He was amenable to that, but it's hardly an ideal way to work. Maybe I'll do an earlier Kickstarter campaign, who knows. These are still things I'm noodling, and heaven knows my beginnings can use all the help they can get.

I think both of my released novels are in good shape, better than some commercially published books I've read, but I don't want to settle. My responsibility to my readers is to continue to improve and learn. The biggest benefit from John's work is the lessons I learn about my own writing. John has a strong creative writing and editing background, and that proved out in his modifications for TOS. He was helpful without being heavy-handed. Supportive without being obsequious. It was a great experience.

If you're a self-publisher looking for a solid freelance editor, shoot John an email. He's a reasonable guy also relying on word of mouth. And I'm hardly keeping him busy.

If you're a reader wanting to support my editing efforts (the cleaner we can make these books, the better my chances of selling more and getting rid of the Day Job), sign up for the newsletter. Any future Kickstarter campaigns will be announced there (as well as here, probably). Or, if you're super rich and want to finance the whole she'bang, email me. I'm sure we can work something out :-).

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Google Promotions

Oh, I didn't tell you guys? I got picked up by Google. They're doing my book promotions now. Hard hitting stuff. Like today, when they redid their entire website to help advertise my novelette. They really want me to succeed. I mean, look:

Now, Google claims that they're honoring Gideon Sundback, the inventor of the zipper. But if you read the article about it, it's hardly a clear-cut claim. No, we can read between the lines. This is Google starting to get into the publishing business. (Even though, you know, there's no link to my novelette anywhere. It's Google, they're tricky like that.)

Some time soon, we're getting set up to honor the inventor of the sparkle. They don't actually tell me when they're going to promote me. It's sort of this new surprise promotion thing they're doing.

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How I Choose My Titles

Unrelated announcement first: my novelette, The Only Sparkle, looks to be live on all my vendors. I've updated its page with the cover, description, and direct links to each purchasing location. You can find all that here. Now we just need to put together that newsletter with the free code. Promise it'll be out by Friday at the very latest.

On topic: the title for the novelette is pretty simple to explain. I went with a longer (TOS is only the short form since, well, it's shorter), funny title mean to capture the essence of the story. I like using a longer title for a shorter work, as there has been some precedent for this with magazine articles and it differentiates from novels.

The real topic, though, stemmed from this link. It's an article talking about a recent naming trend for novels. A trend I participated in without realizing it. Apparently, The ___'s Daughter is popular right now. I had no idea when I named my first novel.

I suppose I should describe my naming process. Generally, at some point while I'm writing, I settle on a title that I like. Sometimes I have it in mind to begin with, other times it comes as part of the on-going world building. In the case of a series, I often have ideas for the next several titles.

For instance, with the Spirit Binder's series, I tentatively would like to use The Binder's Husband and The Binder's Destiny as subsequent titles. They fit with the roughly planned themes. It's all subject to change (or expand) as the story dictates, but there was a method to the madness.

With the Symphony of Two Keys series (of which Fates' Motif is forthcoming), I have three other tittles planned. A symphony typically consists of four movements, hence four parts. Each title then, is planned to have a link to a more-or-less famous classical movement that fits the planned theme. A little more in depth, but with Google, not as hard as you might think.

Incidentally, Fates' Motif is a nod to Beethoven's Fifth. You know, the popular ba-ba-ba-baaahm. The urban legend is that the popular theme was meant to represent Fate knocking at the door (though this intention has not been proven, and, in fact, is viewed somewhat skeptically by experts). The legend runs parallel to my own theme, so it resonated with me if nothing else. The other titles have been similarly named.

So basically, I settle on a name, and then I Google it to see if it has any, well, bad associations. I would hate to name a book and find out later that it is the exact same name as a something completely unrelated. I definitely don't want to match another book, but in today's digital age, I think you even have to be wary of other products and services as well. You simple want a search to turn up your book, and nothing else crazy.

There weren't any other Binder's Daughters, but I didn't check for "insert term here" Daugther stories. My searching isn't that intense. It's interesting to be part of a trend you weren't aware of. I don't think this is a bad thing, though I'm somewhat miffed (/sarcasm) that my book wasn't mentioned in the article.

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The Only Sparkle: Released!

Finally, after much consternation and a lot of life-hurdles, we've released something new around here. granted, it is only a novelette, but it doubles my sales portfolio. Every little bit helps, and I'm really excited about this story. I guess I try to reign myself in because it was shorter, and therefore not as much work. Thus, I had a lot of fun doing it. And fun can't possibly be work, right? So I tend to hedge a bit.

I'm hoping the story will make you laugh out loud. At minimum, I expect a courtesy smile. If you find it silly, that's sort of the point. Though, I'm particularly proud of the explanation for vampires in this one. I think it's pretty clever (biased much?). It probably wouldn't work in a large scope, but for a short it's perfect and fun to play with.

Here's the final description for the novelette:

Mark’s claim to fame is as the manager of the local movie rental store. Sally is his beautiful, blonde employee with a penchant for vampires. It’s business as usual until Mark finds a note taped to a return. A note that claims inside knowledge about a vampire being behind a pair of recent murders. A note that explains the vampire’s weakness. A note addressed to Sally.

Is the information credible? Do vampires even exist? Is Sally intrepid enough to catch one? Will Mark be able keep to her safe? And, regardless of all that, can either of them find a way to get the killer to put on pants?

+ + +

The Only Sparkle On a Vampire Should Be the Zipper is a 12,000 word novelette. That’s about five chapters for those of you keeping track at home. It is urban fantasy with a humorous twist. Written based on a dare, the challenge was to create an engaging story where a vampire’s power revolves around wearing pants. Silly? You betcha! The Only Sparkle promises a short, fun read with an interesting hook.

It is already up on Smashwords, and should pop up on Amazon and B&N shortly (gotta work through the system). It's priced at $0.99, which is probably a steal. Even so, we're planning to offer a code so that you can get it for FREE through our newsletter. Just sign up (up there on the left of my sidebar, "Just the Important Stuff"), and we'll send it out with our "official" announcement in the next few days. The code will be good for unlimited downloads and active for a year. Feel encouraged to share it with friends. Especially "iffy" friends that may not be all that into reading. Who can turn away a free story, am I right?!

I hope to make a habit of putting up a shorter work right before releasing a larger novel. It has served as a good warm-up for us for Fates' Motif, reminding us of all the little self-pubbing intricacies that we may have forgotten since our last release. Plus, it was refreshing for me to write while I was waiting on edits. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

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Cover Preview: The Only Sparkle

We fast-tracked my novelette, The Only Sparkle, so that we could get it out before Fates' Motif. Shorter works are easier to edit and prepare, so it just made sense. I'm still hacking away at FM, but TOS made quick work of TOS. My wife also cooked up a cover, and I wanted to share it today. I think she nailed it.

We're still shooting to get this story out by the end of this week, perhaps early next week. What do you think?

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The Luck of The Irish

Fellow author Nadja Notariani posted a Lucky Seven Meme yesterday. I've not done a whole lot of memes on here, but thought this could be a fun one. The premise is this:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP 
2. Go to line 7 
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they're written. 
4. Tag 7 authors

Now, I'm going to have to modify this a bit. My latest WIP didn't have 77 pages. It was a novelette. So I'm going to pick my favorite number and go to page 17. I'll do two and three as advertised, but I don't think I know seven authors to tag. At least not seven authors that would pay attention to my tags. So I'll just say it right now: if you're reading this and want to do the meme. Consider yourself tagged. You can even leave a comment and I'll give you a proper link.

We'll go with seven paragraphs from page 17. This is also unedited, so feel free to point out errors. Here it goes:

“Probably has a thing for blondes,” Mark muttered.

He’d not meant it seriously, but Sally was nodding. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I remind him of a lost love or something romantic like that.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Okay, so we arm ourselves with culinary additives and religious idols, you walk in and flash him, and then what, we ask him politely to put on pants?”

“Oh yeah! The pants!”

Mark seemed to be conjuring a mental image of his description. “It’s pretty counterproductive to putting on pants if you ask me,” he said, but Sally wasn’t paying attention.

She had the note out. “The pants make him human. We won’t necessarily need a stake. We could use, well… anything. Do you own a gun, Mark?”

Mark blinked. “A gun? No I don’t have a gun. And even if I did I wouldn’t let you use it. Sal, you’re talking about murdering a man.”

 There you have it. A nice little exchange smack in the middle of the story. Well, I guess it's still pretty early, but fun nonetheless.

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A Title For The Dare

I don't have an editor yet, but I do have a title for the dare story I just finished writing. It's a 12,000 word novelette. If you recall, the basic feature of the story had to be a vampire whose power hinged around whether or not he was wearing pants. Yes, it's pretty preposterous. The challenge was to craft a short story around a crazy idea.

I think it turned out well. The story is fun. There are some good jokes. It's not meant to be taken completely seriously, but I think it'll be a great little read for the 99 cents I plan to sell it for.

In any case, I wanted to come up with a title that captured the fun nature of the story. I didn't want it to sound all "srs bzns" because that would be false advertisement. My friend mentioned that he used to see magazine stories with long, one-liner titles all the time. It's a convention I can't say I'm familiar with (I've pretty much always stuck to the novel as my preferred media), but I'm going to go with it. Long titles are silly. So, the title I'd like to use is:

The Only Sparkle On A Vampire Should Be The Zipper.

Or "The Only Sparkle" for short. Thematically, it fits with the story and I think it's pretty fun. Now, I'm not totally hating on Twilight or anything (though I am poking fun). One of the main characters just happens to be a vampire "purist," if you will. There's also a pretty clever hook (if I do say so myself) that ties it all together so that it makes sense. As soon as I can get this baby edited, I want to put it out there.

What do you think?

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Page 1 of The Dare

I'm feeling a bit lazy today and since I've been talking about my short story, I figured I'd put up the first page for free perusal. It seemed to fit well into a post and I was editing it anyway, so here you go. Feel free to point out anything egregious. I'll probably end up posting the whole thing on here for free. At least, I want to. The hurdle from my perspective is to be able to post it in easily digestible chunks that aren't completely esoteric. As an avid blog-reader myself, I don't much care for giant walls of story or cryptic excerpts. So we'll see how this sharing goes. If you like/don't like the format, let me know. I've been looking into something like Wattpad too: a place where I could release free versions of my stories in a nice, serial format. One that is friendly to the form.

I'm just calling this "The Dare" for now, but I'll settle on a proper title when it's finished. Anyway, here we go...

Mark

The bell above the door rang, signifying a new customer.

"How about this guy?" Sally asked.

Mark sized up the man. He wore a colorful ski jacket, open at the neck despite the chill. As he entered, he pulled off his stocking cap and swiped at some snow that had already begun to melt. His brown hair was matted to his forehead and his blue eyes swept swiftly to Action/Adventure section. He walked toward the aisle with a purposeful stride.

"Easy. Spy thriller," Mark answered. "And he'll go to your counter."

They waited for a moment. The man perused the racks of rental movies, eventually snatching one. He flipped it and scanned the back. Looking for more images of the female lead. She would be in a bathing suit, Mark knew.

The man tapped the case twice, turned on the balls of his feet, and made for the checkout counter. He paused after exiting the cinematic canyons--as Mark thought of the racks--and glanced from Sally, to him, and then back at Sally. Mark made it easier on the man; he turned and busied himself with rearranging the stand holding microwave popcorn.

Sally pursed her pouty lips as the man approached. She recited the litany of policies and dates, scanned the movie and the man's card, then removed the plastic security flap.

"Due back next Tuesday," she said with a friendly smile.

The man licked his lips and swallowed before thanking her, trying--but failing--to keep his eyes from sliding to Sally's breasts. A daub of red rose to Sally's cheeks as she noticed, but she said nothing. Mark chuckled to himself. You think she'd be used to that by now.

She led the man around to the exit door and handed him his purchase in a plastic bag. As soon as he was gone, she turned and stuck her tongue out at Mark. He laughed out loud this time.

"I don't like this game," Sally said.

"That's because I always win," Mark pointed out.

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