They've Changed NaNo's Website

They've gotten rid of some of the stuff I used as a Municipal Liaison before. The Google Calendar link is missing (maybe moved) so plugging in events may get trickier.

I am going to need to take time figuring this out, thank God I got a month before November starts.

Get your novel prepped, people!

Changes to My List of Works

I don't know if anyone else has paid attention, but I've been having some issues with the Print-On-Demand service I've used to get two works published.

One thing I tried recently was to email XLibris and request a change on pricing to the ebook release of Last of the Grapefruit Wars, which was supposed to be covered by the agreement I had with them back in 2003. Unfortunately, the only thing they DID do was remove the ebook offering altogether from Amazon and Barnes&Noble (and likely all other retail providers). I think they changed the parameters of the deal on me (or I didn't understand it to begin with), or else didn't care. Either way, they never emailed me back about what they did. I had to see it for myself. Not a good way to handle a client.

Back when PoDs first appeared, I gave XLibris a try to see how the service would work, which ended up being a lot of work at my end and not much else. They did provide decent copies of books, the bindery has held up relatively well for more than a decade. And they did have some decent marketing materials... which have now gotten too expensive for my budget.

And the only thing I do get from them are calls from a new "agent" every six months asking me to sign up for a new marketing plan... which is essentially the same marketing plan they offered me since 2003 of spam-emailing everybody.

I'm a little bit discouraged about this.

I read up the current rules for XLibris to see if I can cancel both of my book deals with them... and it looks like I can.

So my plan is to cancel both my books with XLibris - the political book has sold... well, maybe once - and re-edit the Grapefruit Wars anthology with a few new stories. Update the collection as it were, make it bigger - at 124 pages it was pretty thin - and repackage it to a self-publishing service - Ingramspark - that might provide a better deal with both print and ebook.

(This won't include my Talents superhero stories as I want to package them differently, preferably anchored by an honest-to-God book)

Thing is, I also want to change the anthology title. I've found out Last of the Grapefruit Wars confused too many people.

So I'm brainstorming now about what a good new title for the book could be.

It's a mash-up of different genres - there's one true sci-fi, a couple of fantasy, a lot of coming-of-age - mostly from my college years and the 1990s when I tried getting into the short story market. If there's any consistent element to the stories, it's been a lot of humor (I hope). Most of the newer stories to add are humor-oriented as well. So I'm thinking that would be the way to re-brand the set of stories.

Right now, the best title I can think of is Slices of Crazy: Collected Stories.

Titles like Welcome to Florida won't cut it, that's too common. So's Out of My Mind and variants thereof.

One story I might add is "Jar of the Atlantic" but as a book title might be as confusing as Grapefruit Wars. I'm intrigued with the idea of making the subtitle to any decided title be ...And Other Personal Disasters but that's too self-deprecating.

If any of my seven blog followers got any suggestions, let me know.

What It Means To Change The Library System

This will be the fourth time in my career where I will be at a large library system changing over the cataloging/circulation database.

When I was at Broward County after 1994 and before 2003, it was when they switched from a Web Cat to a CARL (I think it was Dialog @ CARL, but it's been so long...).  It was better networked, more menu-driven, more GUI friendly.

When I was at the University of Florida Libraries from 2003 to 2006 it went from WebLUIS to ExLibris / Aleph, which provided more coordination with online databases, a proto version of Integrated Library Systems (ILS).

When I was at Pasco County Libraries from 2006 to 2008 it went from CARL (with a DOS-style text-only variant for circ staff, compared to the Internet-friendly OPAC screen) to CARL.X, with a more ILS and keyword-friendly format.

Here at Bartow Public Library, as part of the Polk County Library Cooperative we're switching from SirsiDynix Horizon to Symphony, the company's ILS solution.

Timing for me is apparently everything.  I bet if the Library of Congress hires me they'll decide a few months later to switch over from LC to another cataloging system altogether.

Why the switch?

Each change in the systems were due to changes in technology.  GUI or Graphic User Interfaces weren't really feasible until the mid-90s when the operating systems improved to be more GUI oriented (Win 95, anyone?), hence a lot of library catalogs were text-based commands rather than selected commands up until 1996 or so.  With the spread of the Internet came more online databases and the need to integrate journal and magazine and newspaper articles into search results, needing the ILS formats from 2003 onward.  With the advent of e-books and digital printing, the need to integrate e-book collections in OverDrive and NetLibrary alongside the print catalog is a must, which is where Symphony is the choice PCLC is going with.

Next up will probably be further integration into non-traditional resources, such as video and audio streaming.  Just think of having to keyword link various menu selections to The Avengers DVD/Blu-Ray...