Indie eBook Award Via Library Journal

Just to be fair aboot it, I want to let everyone else who's self-publishing their eBooks to know that Library Journal - as part of the American Library Association - is hosting an Indie eBook Award for 2016.

The rules are simple. Two eBooks enter, one eBook leaves.

Okay, actually, it's this:
The competition is open to all English-language self-published ebooks for which the author is the copyright holder of the Work, and holds the rights to digital distribution. Entries will be evaluated on content, writing quality, and overall quality of production and appearance. There are no restrictions on date of publication. (Library Journal may demand proof of eligibility of semifinalists.) Review our full terms & conditions before submitting your entries.

Library Journal (“LJ”) honors the best self-published ebooks in the following genres: Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Young Adult.
ATTENTION: If your book in not in one of these genres, you can still submit to SELF-e using our standard submission form.

Judging committees will be comprised of Library Journal editors and public library collection development & acquisition librarians, who are responsible for selecting content suitable for their libraries. Some winners of the 2015 contest will also be participating as judges. They will select one winner and designate two honorable mentions in each category. We are accepting contest submissions through July 31, 2016.

Each genre prize Winner shall receive $1,000.00. All winners and honorable mentions shall also receive:

• A full LJ review, in print and online
• A promotional ad in LJ’s December “Best of Books” issue, displaying all award winners honor books
• Recognition at LJ Self-Published Ebook Awards reception at the 2017 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta

So you have until July 31st to get your eBook copyright-protected, perform a summer solstice pagan ritual (gotta get that done by June 21, you heathens), and submit at least one of your eBooks.

I will. I'm tempted to submit two: Body Armor Blues and A Serious Tank on a Clockwork World. I'm more curious to see what the response will be like rather than considering I'll win anything. What makes it worthwhile is even the honorable mentions will get a review published of their works, which means a lot of public and college libraries will see those reviews in Library Journal (and libraries are good markets for books AND eBooks)...

Such is life, c'est la vie.

The Biggest Problem with Publishing to eBook?

You lack the physical material - the actual book - to promote your works when you go out to any author signing events.

The work-around for that is to have at least one thing published in book form to have on the display table, and then having posters and bookmarks and handout items like pens or notepads at the ready for people to take home.

So there's a cost to that: getting bookmarks printed with professional stock paper - glossy stock, a thicker card-like stock - gets up into the tens of dollars to print a hefty amount to hand out.

The rules of creating things like bookmarks are relatively simple:

1) Eye-catching image on one side of the bookmark, usually a part of the book cover art;

2) The other side of the bookmark has to contain brief Author information, and detailed Book information about where and how it can get purchased. ISBN number, which website to find it at, which eReaders can open it, etc.

3) If it's an object, like a coffee mug or pen, it depends on the amount of space you're working with. A coffee mug or mousepad or poster should have more than enough room on one side for the book cover, but a pen or smaller object would have to go with just the title of the book, author info, and weblink to an Author's Page.

Like all graphic design projects, it would help to rely on someone trained in marketing design and layout.

Just to note all this as I prep for the Local Authors' Signing this Saturday.

NEW Published: A Serious Tank on a Clockwork World

You may notice an earlier post about teaching a class on self-publishing and e-publishing in particular. Part of the class was to demonstrate how to actually upload that book and make it available.

So I took a story I'd been fiddling with for years, cleaned it up as best I could, struggled over designing my own book cover, and tried the upload.

I messed up the file size of the book cover JPG, so the class got futzed in a hurry.

In the meantime, I'd discussed the whole issue of book covers online with fellow NaNoWriMo writers, and a ton of them all told me the same thing: my cover design skills suck. So a couple of them threw out their ideas, and writer Mary Crawford came up with a cover that just looked gorgeous so I begged to buy hers off at $100 to use for the story.

That looks beautiful, with the reflective blue glass, doesn't it?

The story itself... look, I got to admit, this wasn't a SERIOUS attempt to publish as it was a way to show how others how to do it. If you wanna know, it's a tale built off the Asimov's Laws of Robotics - with revisions - and it involves a future world where a planet full of androids have to cope with an unwanted destructive military tank.

It's not much, just an excuse to throw some ideas out there. I had bits and pieces of sentences and scenes that I liked, and needed to put in something somewhere. If you do read the story and notice how uneven it is, that's why: set pieces strung together with barely enough in common to make a coherent tale.

I wouldn't say it's "Very Bad Poetry, Captain" but it's not exactly Hugo-worthy either.

Still, it's out there, on the market, with a beautiful book cover to it, and I really need to get about 100 people buying it so I can recoup my purchase of the cover from Ms. Crawford. Have at it, kids!

Oh, you need links:

Kindle download version

Nook download version

Nook Free Fridays

Just noting that the format for getting FREE ebooks for B&N Nook readers has changed.

It now goes to B&N Readouts, which is an app-friendly format.

As a result, people aren't able to add comments - at least, not clearly - that provide additional FREE downloadable books on the market each weekend.

There's a regular poster who does - Penelope - and she's decided to move her FREE weekend listings to her own blog at turningkey.blogspot.com where links back to the bn.com site are available.

Thank ye again, Penelope!

The Problem Of Self-Publishing: Self-Marketing

I may have noted this before.

Writing a novel is difficult in terms of time: it takes hours to days to weeks to months to get over a hundred pages written unless you dedicate entire blocks of time to it. Part-time writing spreads out over the calendar while full-time duties elsewhere - professional or personal - take priority.

Editing isn't as bad with time or effort, but psychologically draining. Writers are terrified of finding flaws on paper that made so much sense in the mind. Once you can get past that mental block, the rest is easy.

Neither of those problems compare to the third one writers face: Actually getting people to read your works.

Let's be honest: I write so people can read the stories I've got in my head. I have a story, think it might be funny, I type it up, I put it out there, I see if anyone gets a laugh from reading it. The whole point of a story is to share it.

So how do I get it out there that I've got these stories that people can read (at a reasonable cost)?

This is the part I'm not comfortable with. And I see a lot of fellow writers in the same situation.

Writing can be an introverted, personal affair. A lot of writers - the artistic sensibility - tend to be introverts. Marketing - the "buy my book!" part of the cycle of life - is all extroverted.

With a new ebook out, I'm looking now for places that can market it. I'm thinking along the lines of "professional" or at least respected review sources that can take a moment to say "oh hey, this guy has this new book about superheroes if you got an interest go take a look". As a librarian, I know about review sources like Booklist and Publishers Weekly, but I also know that PW charges to list self-published titles in their previews section.

This is where the big publishers - or even the small press types - have a leg up: they have marketing offices that handle all of this, with ties to the retailers and advertisers. I'm just wondering if self-publishers have a legal, safe place to get the same kind of effective (and honest) marketing service but at an affordable rate. I've dealt with a marketing group for Print-on-Demand once, and was horrified by what they offered. It was ALL they offered: a mass email spamming service. (I think since then they'd expanded to cover professional reviewers and retailer connections, but by then I didn't want anything to do with them on that).

If anyone's got any suggestions about how I can get the word out for Body Armor Blues, I'm willing to hear you out. Thank ye.

New! Body Armor Blues (w/ updates)

Hello, new ebook novella available for downloading today!

Body Armor Blues

Cover art by Istebrak

Something I'd been working on since September of this month, as part of the Talents superhero universe I've been tinkering since 2004.

"...There are superheroes in the world, people with Talents. but even with powers, those would-be heroes need to protect themselves with the best armor they can get. But one young woman training up in 1993 is finding out that some armors can't fit her, and she's gonna need a hero of her own to find a solution."

If you're into comic books, you'll know some of the more geeky details of a superhero narrative is "where do they get those outfits?" Well, this is a story about that, and how it's serious business for superheroes.

Also, there's cake in the story.

If you've read Hero Cleanup Protocol, it's from the same 'Verse and has Powersurge as one of the main characters. Timeline-wise, Body Armor Blues takes place in 1993, with Protocol happening in 2002 (or was it 2003? I'll need to re-read). I've got a basic history and timeline for this universe on file, to help me keep track of things (there are three major character arcs, Powersurge is one and Jenny is the other, there's a third I'm still working on).

I really would like, please and thank you ahead of time, for anyone purchasing a copy of the book to leave a review of what you think at the appropriate site. I'd like to see how this one does on the market. Again, thank you!

Available via Amazon Kindle here.
Available via Barnes&Noble for Nooks here. It is published through Smashwords, but for Nook users it's a direct upload so it's easier.
For all other ereader devices, it's available via Smashwords here. .

NEW: Stories For All Seasons

Just released this week!  Woot!

The local writers group - Writers 4 All Seasons - tried out a group project this year: collecting our own short stories and publishing them to a themed anthology.

Stories For All Seasons collects each tale in a chronological order - by season, by month - that provides a sense of scenery, of mood, of time and place.

My submission "Where the Snow Is Grey" is towards the end, as it's set around the Christmas holidays.  The title itself comes from a mondegreen of sorts: I misheard the first few lines of Tori Amos' "Winter" song and... well... from the title came the story idea.

It's only available as eBook as this is a small writers group and we are but humble wage-slaves unable to afford actual print publishing.  Currently it's Amazon Kindle only, but I'll see if we're getting an EPUB variation out as well.  Update 8/20: I've been told that our publishing arrangement with Kindle has it so they have exclusive rights for a few months, so we won't see an EPUB version for about six months perhaps.

For myself, this is a new publication release for which I am feeling the usual buzz of "oh yeah I made it".  I think for some from the writers' group, this is their first publication of any kind, I think they're through the roof.

Makes me wanna finish those damn novels I'm still tripping over. ;)

If any visitors here want to download the anthology, please do.  All I ask is that you leave a review on Amazon, which will help promote the book.  And if you like what the other authors wrote, please follow-up and see what else they've got on market.  Thank you!

Now Working On a Cover For the eStory

I've been told the use of the clipart off of CorelDraw 9 (from, what, 15 years ago?) might violate the use agreement if I sell the story, soooooo... I need to draw my own alligator by hand.  WITH a Santa hat.

This is gonna be a long night.

Kindle Loading

So I finally got around to plugging in my estories "Welcome to Florida" and "Hero Cleanup Protocol" to the Kindle Direct service.

It didn't make sense to not have my estories available in one of the two major ebook formats - Kindle's and EPUB's - but Amazon never got around to accepting Smashwords (in which I first submitted "Hero Cleanup Protocol") and I wasn't certain it was legally okay for me to re-publish a story I had first loaded for Nook ("Welcome to Florida").

Since I own the copyright on both stories, I figure I ought to be able to re-submit to cover Kindle and ensure I can publish in both formats.

Now it's a question of finishing the Christmas story sequel to "Welcome".  Hopefully get it reviewed by Tuesday, uploaded by Wednesday... :evil grin:

Crash Writing

Sure I ought to focus on getting the NaNo novel continuing, but a writing challenge from a local group stirred up an old idea in my head and I'm charging into creating a short story to see about getting it epublished for the holidays!

Hint: it involves the couple from the "Welcome To Florida" story.

Be right back...

Look What I Found On the New Processing Cart At Bartow Library

Someone's gone and done a YA novel about Library Ninjas...

I oughta be kicking myself though.  I've been thinking up of the need for library ninjas since the 1990s when I wrote my American Libraries humor article about squelching book theft.  Which led into my "Overdue" short story in my Grapefruit Wars anthology...  Shoulda known there could be a market for a full book.

Well played, Downey, well played.

I still got the market cornered on cyborg ninjas battling exploding space penguins...  wait, don't start writing that out!  NO!  MY IDEA, MINE!  Aaaaaaa (rushes off to power-type during this Memorial Day weekend)

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...

Update: eBook versions of Strangely Funny now available!

Woot!  Whoop!  Huzzah!

The print version is still a week away, but thanks to the tireless efforts of the editors Sarah Glenn and Gwen Mayo, various ebook providers are now offering downloads at $2.99 for the Strangely Funny humor-horror anthology.

Amazon link here.

Smashwords (which includes ePUB versions accessible to Nook, iPad, and other formats) link here.

Yes, I know my name does not appear as a contributor on the Amazon and Smashwords pages, but I assure you my short story "I Must Be Your First" is published.  The other authors listed are better known, one of them an award-winning mystery writer Catriona McPherson (she won for Best Historical Novel in 2012 for Unsuitable Day For Murder), so I don't mind not being on the marquee.  What's important is that 1) I've been published outside of my self-publishing efforts and 2) hopefully other people reading for the other authors will see my story, like it, and follow up after my other works.

So again, Yay and Woot!  Feeling good today. :)

Promoting Gutenberg

This is a project that's been going on for a good while: Project Gutenberg began in 1971 as an attempt to digitize public domain works - classic literature - for computer-based reading.

Originally the works were mostly done up as plain text (.txt format) as that was the easiest and most accessible.  However, with the advent of ebooks / ereader devices that can mimic classic font styles - and with HTML format for ereader apps allowing for graphics/illustrations - more works have been put in more legible, more comfortable reader formats such as PDF, ePub and MOBI.

And as works of public domain - expired copyright, only in the United States however, some nations may not be able to access - these downloads can be had for free.  Sure, we're not talking the latest Danielle Steel or Stephen King work here, but we ARE talking about must-reads like Great Expectations, Les Miz, Huck Finn, Machiavelli's The Prince, the Kama... oooh, wait, kids could be reading this...

Anywho.  For all ereaders out there, Gutenberg is a great place to expand your e-collection.

Please also donate to Project Gutenberg, it is a non-profit.

April Event! Get Your Calendars Out

Just to let you seven blog readers know, I've been invited to a Local Authors Event at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Wesley Chapel, FL (address is 28152 Paseo Dr also known as the Shops At Wiregrass).  The event is Saturday April 14th from 2 pm to 4 pm and involves about 10-12 local self-published or small-press authors hawking our titles.  I'll be offering up Last of the Grapefruit Wars in print as well as promoting my estories Welcome to Florida and The Hero Cleanup Protocol.

For some reason, that store's website doesn't have anything scheduled on their calendar (not even Nook training classes, so I think they're just late submitting one), so for linking purposes I have the Event notice from Facebook right here.

Please tell anyone you know in the Tampa Bay area that's within driving distance of Wesley Chapel to please show up and support our local authors!  (good turnouts always encourage the stores to keep hosting these events...)

Here's a promotional sign I've made for Welcome to Florida:

How does it look?

A Gift To The Seven People Who Read This Blog

A FREE download of The Hero Cleanup Protocol!

1) Visit the Smashwords' website for the estory.
2) Select Add To Cart button.
3) Use the Coupon Code JJ47F.  It should drop the price of the estory to FREE.
4) Follow the download instructions for the version of ereader you have.  There are separate versions for Kindle, ePub (covering Nook, iApple and other readers), and more.
5) Install the story file to your reader and enjoy!

If you can, please give the estory a review (and be gentle!).  Thanks!

EDIT: The code is good until November 1st.

To the Seven People Reading This Blog...

...any of you hear yet if Amazon's fixed Kindle to be compatible to epub/DRM specs?  I thought it was happening this month...

eStory: The Hero Cleanup Protocol - Published!

After a few months of realizing I needed to edit the story some more to Smashwords' content rules, that I had to follow through to the Premium stage and request an ISBN (which is the ISBN-13 number 9781458089526, I hope), and that I needed to resubmit after all the corrections...

The "Hero Cleanup Protocol" estory is now available for purchase!

I finally got a cover artist, a friend of a friend of a colleague who knows a guy, fellow by the name of Mike Rooth who does this sort of artwork on a commission basis.  A thumbnail copy of the cover is to the side of this paragraph.  Once the cover was finalized I completed the Smashwords submission process and finally got the approval about a week ago.

I was only waiting until now to verify that YES the story is for sale.

Because I've already got two purchases yesterday!  Ahhhhhhhh, the emotional high of selling your work, it's like a perfect drug...

It's selling for .99 per copy, the cheapest it can go, as it's a short story and not a full novel.  The good news is, the overall experience of submitting a work for publication seems relatively simple. As long as I do a better job of planning ahead for cover art, I should get a finished and edited-reviewed draft up and for sale within weeks instead of six months or more with a print book.

The best thing about Smashwords is that, unlike the direct-retailer situation I had with "Welcome To Florida" the story I submitted directly to B&N's PubIt service, what I've submitted through Smashwords is going to show up in other retailers: Not only Barnes&Noble's Nook, but also Sony's Reader, the Kobo, Diesel ebooks, and Apple iBook.  Amazon's Kindle doesn't have it yet, but Smashwords is waiting for Kindle to get the conversion upgrade for DRM formatting, so when that happens you Kindle owners can buy a copy!

My trick now: marketing.  Hoo boy.  So here's the deal, folks.  If you can get 49,998 more people to buy a copy of "The Hero Cleanup Protocol", I'll be a very happy librarian person.  Thank yew.  :-)

Asking Xlibris To Lower the Cost of My Book...

...I kind of got the feeling when I called the publisher a few days ago to lower the price of the ebook version of Last of the Grapefruit Wars from $5.99 to $2.99 that I was pulling teeth from a very upset lion.

I think the conflict came from the fact that the publisher is one of those mainstream Print-on-Demand services.  Cutting the price in half seems like cutting half the money they'd be getting from selling that book.

Problem is, no one has been buying that many copies of my book (I'd say about two ebook purchases in the last year...) anyway.  And I think the price of it at over 5 bucks was part of the problem.

The book itself is pretty small in terms of page count (in ebook version it's under 100 pages): calling it slim is being polite.  But nobody is going to be buying a thin volume at over 5 bucks... when there are thicker-page-count novels going for less.

With the advent of direct publishing in ebook format, there is now a glut of self-published authors selling directly to the market.  And as they don't have to share (much) with a mainstream publisher with the profits, those authors can set their price any way they see fit.  And a lot of them are selling at 2.99 per ebook.  So I might as well drop the price of Grapefruit Wars to that level as well.

It makes basic sense.  If the demand is low, lower the value on what you have on supply to encourage people shopping for bargains.  You just can't go too low to hamper the costs of producing said supply (this is where you get that economics chart of the supply-and-demand X crossing).  Considering I paid Xlibris good money to have the short story anthology made available to direct-retail purchases, I think the costs of supply have been covered.  Now it's just selling the damn thing (and marketing with Xlibris is another issue altogether)...

Still, I NEED to deal with advertising that ebook and let people know it is for 2.99 now...

New eStory: The Hero Cleanup Protocol

by. Paul Wartenberg
cover by.  Paul Wartenberg, 'cause I'm waiting on word from Adam Withers if he's available to draw a cover for me... ;-)

The story is an idea I'd been bumping about for ages: my own little superhero reality where it's a world where Superheroes exist... but because they didn't know they classified as supers, by the time they could do anything about it (the Sixties) all the superhero names were claimed by the comic book industry.  So they have to go with fake "real names" like Charlie or Vicky... except for the rare few who can afford to pay a name squatter the rights to those names.  This is also a world where Superheroes have to be registered: either work under legal guidelines for the U.S. Marshals or the military (where supersoldiers rarely worked out well...), or "retire".  The mechanics of the world is that 1) anyone can be a hero: there's no defining DNA or chromosomal trait or mutating process; 2) most super powers are basic such as improved agility, speed, and flight... but that's usually it, there are few advanced powers like firestarting, telekinesis, or scrying; 3) the powers are mental in nature, not physical, even the powers of strength and invulnerability; 4) Most supers don't even know they have powers because they're rarely in a situation to employ them; and 5) there are few true Superhumans or God-like beings: most are mortal humans (there's one or two notable exceptions, and they're terrifying...).

In this world, there's (supposedly) one potential superhuman per 500,000 people.  Most supers organize into teams per city/metro, dedicated to stuff like bounty hunting, emergency response to disasters, and public relations (they're treated like sports athletes and celebrities: the third thing you get when you become a Registered Super - AKA Talent because "Super" had been trademarked - is your own playable trading card).  And in this world, every wannabe hero goes through rigorous training with the FBI and Marshals offices at Quantico.  They also go through rigorous psych evals, because the last thing anyone wants on their team is a superhero ready to snap at any second.

My story is about what happens when a new hero arrival snaps on his first day.  That's the Cleanup Protocol.  And it's my introduce to the key character of my superhero universe: Powersurge, the exception to all the rules I made...

It's been uploaded into Smashwords, made available for various ereader services.  I think it has a converted format for Kindle as well, which is a bit surprising because I thought Kindle was still using an exclusive format...

This was part of my Local Authors event presentation: I wanted to demonstrate the relative ease of getting a story uploaded straight from Word document format into an epublishing market.

The tricky part now is, obviously, how to get 50,000 people to buy that estory... ;-)