Happy Monday, everyone!
I will get back to recapping 2012 here later this week, but today, I’m so excited to share with you an interview I did for the outstanding Wise, Ink blog, with Beaver’s Pond Press’ Dara Beevas, author of The Indie Author Revolution. We had a marvelous chat via Skype about ways to market E-Books and had a lot of fun and laughs. The audio’s a little uneven, but Dara did an excellent recap in the accompanying post. Enjoy!
Earlier this week, Felix Baumgartner, as you’ve probably heard, leaped from his capsule 24 miles above the earth, in a death-defying feat that stunned and amazed people all over the world.
All I can say is big deal. (Warning: spoof alert in effect).
I repeat, BIG DEAL. Baumgartner’s not the first one to put on a super suit (Anyone remember Frozone? Anyone?); embark on a tortuously slow journey; disconnect all forms of support; take a huge leap of faith; and hurtle at supersonic speed toward an unknown and possibly calamitous fate, occasionally spinning out of control, with only the thinnest of parachutes to stop him before the crash.
Self-published authors do it every day.
Need proof? I’ve got a super suit. They’re called pajamas (yes, the ones that make me feel and look like a big pink Po. That’s a Teletubby, BTW, not a missing vowel…) and fuzzy slippers. They insulate me on even the coldest days, and mine even come with an extra special feature that toughens my skin against unexpected critics and verbal smackdowns from folks bearing sour grapes in their hearts.
That 2 1/2 hour balloon climb Baumgartner undertook to get to that dizzying altitude? Let’s see him write a novel. Now that’s a long trip.
As far as support systems go, well, I think it’s safe to say that when authors decide to go rogue and self-publish, they give up a lot of that. No marketing department (although traditionally published authors don’t get much of that these days either); no editorial support; no agent negotiations. Self-published authors do without, and they have to do it all. Did you see the team Baumgartner had supporting him the day of the jump? I’d love to have a mission control center like that for Widow Woman…
Yes, we self-published authors take a huge leap of faith, too, and once the book is out there, it’s easy for things to start spinning so fast it feels like a loss of control. You know, the air in the publishing world can be pretty damned thin, too. If you’re lucky (and I am), you’ve at least got (if not an enormous mission control staff) a supportive network of family and friends and colleagues who will grab hold of you when that starts happening, jerk you back upright, and set you on your feet again. They are that thin, ultra-strong fabric that stands between you and the ground–which, I imagine, hurts when you hit it at the speed of sound. A lot.
So if self-publishing is so tough, then why do it?
I’d imagine that it’s for the same reason that Felix Baumgartner decided leaping from 24 miles up was a good thing to do.
He felt compelled? He felt exhilarated? It was a mountain he needed to climb, a challenge he had to accept, a moment in his life that was so great that he would always regret not having attempted it? It was something so vitally important for him to accomplish he was willing to risk a horrible death for it? All right, I concede on that last one–I like my book, but I don’t want to die for it. Just to clarify. But all of those other things?
Yeah. I get ’em. I’m a writer.
P.S. Way to go, Felix. Outrageous.
Kudos to Beaver’s Pond Press today, for their wonderful Indie Author Summit 2012. This event blew me away, bringing together experts from every aspect of the publishing business–publicists, editors, social media gurus, speakers and of course, authors–to continue to foment the literary revolution already well under way. More and more authors are deciding to skip traditional publishing routes altogether, abandoning agents and query letters for independence and control over their work, and the attendees this morning couldn’t have been happier.
Still, it’s a wild, wild world out there at the moment, so giving us indie authors a morning of open access to folks like author Beth Bednar; Dara M. Beevas, VP of Beaver’s Pond Press and author of The Indie Author Revolution: An Insider’s Guide to Self-Publishing; digital content products expert Eric Christopher of Ugly Dog Digital; performance coach, Deirdre Van Nest; online media expert Jorgy Jorgensen of Agent41; PR expert Sara Lien (Lien Public Relations);and social media expert Tai Goodwin provided helpful answers and meaningful support for every step of the self-publishing journey.
Best of all, though? This event was fun and funny. “Write the damned book!” “Self-publishing is a contact sport!” “A quote from my aunt, Maya Angelou. Actually, she’s not, I just like to call her that.” I just love it when an event turns out to be not just as good as I hoped it might be, but even better. Woohoo! I’m feelin’ all Che Guevara now, and ready to revolt!
What’s that old saying, “Two steps forward, one step back?” Well, that’s my route today.
Step Forward: Finished the formatting (first pass, as it turns out–see Step Back below) this morning! Yay, me!
Step Back: Did spell-check of whole document and was aggravated to find several problems. Really, Julia? What the hell is “fotlooseeeeee?” Think I must’ve nodded off and hit the keyboard. Grr. But…
Step Forward: Inserted ISBN number (after a brief clarification call to their Help Desk–surprisingly helpful!) Now I’m official!
Step Forward: Converted file for Web-htm (yay!) and worked my way through Kindle’s KDP publishing steps, including description, cover image (beautiful!), contributors (thanks, Connie) and so forth, right up to uploading my book and downloading the Preview Your Book feature! Yay! Hang on…
Um…wtf?
Table of contents alignment did not convert properly, nor did my margins!
Giant. Freaking. Step. Backward.
Sigh.
Will have to sit down now, try to figure out what happened in my original doc, resave for Web, etc., etc., etc. Tomorrow, since I’m out of time for today.
But hey, at least I got to see what it would look like before it went live, which was awesome, and which means I’m getting closer.
Step Forward.
Step Back.
Step Forward.
Step Back.
Now, everybody–cha cha cha!
Stay tuned, it’s getting closer!
Sorry about the lack of updates–weekends aren’t the best time for me to make any headway, so I’m spending some time playing catch-up now.
Day 6 finds me closing in on the formatting of Widow Woman, Chapter 17 . I would’ve been farther along, but upon closer inspection of the very earliest chapters I wrote, I discovered that I had been operating with what Smashwords’ style guide calls a “common bad habit of all authors.” Er…I used my space bar in the early chapters to indent, rather than setting up a paragraph style. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all groaning, but Smashwords says it’s common, so cut me some slack. I have learned my lesson (after seeing dots floating in front of my eyes all weekend, it was inevitable.) I feel like a writers’ Bart Simpson: “I will not use my space bar to indent. I will not use my space bar to indent. I will not use my space bar to indent.”
At any rate, that set me back a bit of time to go back and address all of that. But the important thing is that it’s all cleaned up now and I’m back to chugging along at a good pace. If I keep this up, I might just be finished within the week. Finished. Was there ever a more satisfying word?
Also received some preliminary cover art from my designer–chose my favorite of 3 renditions, asked for a slight hue adjustment, and am so excited at how it has turned out. I haven’t signed off on it yet, however. I’m pretty cautious when it comes to weighty decisions, and I think the cover art falls precisely into that category, so while I’m relatively certain it’s a go, I’m not ready to push the button just yet. Mostly, I think it’s just that I want to look at the cover design some more, to roll it around in my mind, ponder it…savor it.
Keeping the countdown rolling.