Karen Sandler

Tag: e-books

  • Adventures in the e-Trade – Part 2

    I decided to start my foray into self-publishing with my two Berkley Jove Haunting Hearts books, Unforgettable and Night Whispers. These were the only two books for which I did not have an electronic file. There were my original files, but I wanted to start with the final edited book. That I had only in printed form.

    So I sacrificed one author copy of each book, sending them off to Blue Leaf Book Scanning. Since I was willing to let them cut the books up to make scanning easier, the cost for scanning two 300+ page books was quite reasonable.

    They did a decent job, but it still took a good long time to correct the errors. Besides misinterpreting letters (a cl might become a d), paragraphs throughout were often chopped in two mid-sentence or even mid-word. Sometimes italics became plain text, so I had to flip through the physical book to make sure text that I wanted italicized was indeed italicized.

    I made several passes to correct scanning errors, then at least one editing pass. My cover artist was busy with the covers for the first two books (the final for THE IN-BETWEEN, formerly UNFORGETTABLE, is above), so when the manuscript was ready, so was the cover.

    But nailing down the typos and polishing the prose was only the first step. Next I had to make sure the manuscript was in a format that would easily and correctly convert to Kindle (I’m mainly selling my books through Amazon). I had to make sure that where I wanted blank lines, I had to use the before/after spacing option in Word rather than just hit enter. I had to make sure I was using indents for each paragraph rather than tabs. Without these two crucial fixes, the converter would ignore all my paragraph indents and blank lines. I of course had to do manual page breaks where I wanted a new chapter to begin.

    I then had to wrestle with the converter program I’d decided to use, Mobipocket Creator. In my opinion, the interface is a little goofy and klugy. It asks for information (pricing, for instance) that you will then have to enter again when you put the book up on Amazon. It is not at all clear how to, say, change the cover art or substitute in a new book file without deleting everything and starting all over. I am a very experienced computer user, but many aspects of Mobipocket Creator baffled me.

    I did finally get the book into Kindle format (which I could check out using my PC Kindle reader). I discovered with subsequent books (I’ve done seven so far and intend to do two more) that the best time to check for those final little issues is using your PC Kindle reader. It’s far easier to navigate through the book there than later when you’ve uploaded it on Amazon’s website.

    Once the converted file was ready, I filled in the forms on Amazon, uploaded my cover image and .prc file and waited the couple days for that book to be published. In the case of the first two books, I went ahead and also submitted them to Smashwords as well. That necessitated me inserting certain language on the copyright page, so I had to have a separate version of the book just for Smashwords. Assuming you meet the qualifications, Smashwords will put up your book on Koby, Nook (Barnes & Noble), Sony, and the iStore unless you opt out of any of those venues. It’s been a little trickier getting them taken down (which I’m trying to do, to make these first two books exclusive on Amazon as the rest are), but I think I have it nailed now. Their customer service is not as responsive as I might like, but they have a lot of authors to take care of.

    Side note: Why am I going exclusive with Amazon? Because in their KDP select program you get a couple of bennies: free days (up to 5 where you can offer your book free) and inclusion in their Amazon Prime library. Also, I found it tedious working with Smashwords, and after selling a whopping 3 books there, it didn’t seem worth the effort. I confess to a certain amount of apprehension contributing to the unvanquishableness that is Amazon, but I’m doing well there sales-wise and making some decent money. Hard to pass that up.

    Going back to The In-Between (formerly Unforgettable) and Dark Whispers (formerly Night Whispers), it was a whole rigamarole figuring out I wanted to change the titles and author names after I’d published them. The cover art change wasn’t a problem, since my artist is so easy to work with. And it was simple enough changing the book title and author on Amazon. But I couldn’t make heads nor tails of how to accomplish the same task on Smashwords. Apparently there’s a way, but I never figured it out. I ended up abandoning one account and adding a second one, which led to no end of confusion when I decided to unpublish my books from there.

    So, be sure of your title and author name before you request your cover art and start the publishing process. Otherwise you’ll be chasing your tail trying to fix things when you really just want your book up for sale so you can start building an audience.

    One last note regarding self-publishing. As I mentioned in a previous post, all the books I’ve put up on Amazon are books I’d already made money on, that had already been edited. They’d proven themselves by having been either traditionally or small press published.

    I won’t tell anyone not to self-publish a book they’ve either not been able to sell traditionally, or are choosing not to go the traditional route at the outset. But I beg you not to toss any old bowl of spaghetti against the publishing wall (i.e., to see what sticks). Get the book vetted first by writer friends you trust, or beta readers, or pay an editor if you can afford it. I’ve discovered some dreadful books using Kindle’s sample feature and more often than not, they’re (a) self-published and (b) the only book the author’s written. Pul-leeze, learn your craft first.

    Any questions? Ask ’em in the comments.

  • Adventures in the e-Trade – Part 1

    Kensington Books published my first two romance novels, Just My Imagination and Table for Two, back in 1998 for their Precious Gems program. Not long afterward, I sold two to Berkley Jove’s Haunting Hearts line, Unforgettable and Night Whispers, which were released in 1999. (side note: when my Night Whispers came out, there were two other books available with the same title, one by Judith McNaught).

    Within that same time period, I sold my first e-book, Eternity, a science fiction romance, to Hard Shell Word Factory, which was strictly an e-publisher at that time. I later ended up selling them one other original romance, The Right Mr. Wrong, and an original middle-grade book, Time in a Bottle. In 2000, when rights to my two Kensington books reverted to me, I sold those to Hard Shell too. One other romance, Chocolate Magic, which originally came out in hardcover and then trade paperback from Thorndike Press, eventually became a Hard Shell e-book as well.

    But I didn’t stop with selling rights to those early books only to Hard Shell. I discovered the large print market and was able to sell all  of my first six romances as hardcover large print. That meant that for Just My Imagination and Table for Two, I sold various rights to three publishers within five years.

    This is all prologue to what I’m up to now. Rights for all of the above-mentioned books reverted to me August 2011. Since then, I’ve been republishing the books one by one as Kindle e-books.

    It’s been a steep learning curve. First, the cover. I am not a visual artist. I just don’t have the patience to search through online clip art, nor the talent to put images together into a cover. No clue at all as to what would look good.

    I was lucky enough to find a cover artist who’s quick and reasonably priced. She uses royalty-free clip art to keep costs down, and has a good eye as to what elements work for a given story. I’m astute enough to look at what she’s done and suggest changes as needed, but I don’t have to create the cover myself.

    My second problem was the author name issue. In the last couple years, I’ve switched from romance to the children’s market (young adult). It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want my YA readers to figure out that I’d written romances as Karen Sandler (Harlequin is still selling all the romances I wrote for them under that name). It was more a marketing issue. I didn’t want to tweet about my romances using my @karensandlerya identity on Twitter, for instance. I didn’t want to advertise my romance novels on my karensandler.net website. Which meant I needed a new identity.

    I’ve always wanted to use my mom’s maiden name, Russo, as part of a pen name. With that as my surname, I only needed a first name. I had the perfect choice right at my fingertips, so to speak–Kayla, the name of my main character in my YA book, Tankborn. So my romance identity became Kayla Russo.

    I also started thinking that maybe I ought to be retitling my books. For the most part, I was going for something a little less generic. I also wanted a fresh start on the books. It’s not that I wanted to fool anyone into thinking these are brand-new books. There’s a note inside each one identifying the original title and publisher which a reader can find by downloading a sample. But I wanted to catch the eye of those who might not have heard of me before with (hopefully) more clever titles.

    Unfortunately, I didn’t make the decision to change my name or the titles until I’d not only had the covers created, but had also put up the first two books for sale. Having my cover artist make the name/title change was the easy part. Getting the books updated on the venues I’d submitted them to was a whole other story. I’ll get into that in part 2.

     

  • Old School Reading: On Paper

    As a Kindle devotee, I’ve been reading e-books nearly exclusively since December 2010 when my husband gave me one for my birthday. Even before that I was happily using the Kindle app on my little iPod because it was just so easy to zip through a book in e-format. I did discover that electronic is not so great for non-fiction–there’s no easy way to flip back and forth to and from the endnotes–but it’s a dream for fiction.

    By happenstance, I’m in the middle of reading a non-e-book, the second book in a row in paper format. In the case of the first one, I was at a fabulous indy bookstore, The Avid Reader, in Davis, California. I mentioned to the bookseller that I was a local author, and I told her about Tankborn. She promised to get at least one copy in stock. It seemed only right that I buy a book at the store, and when I spotted a trade paperback edition of Jasper Fforde’s One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I snapped it up. If you haven’t read any of Jasper Fforde’s delightful Thursday Next books, you must check them out. Start with The Eyre Affair. It’s a wacky fantasy that draws heavily on Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

    After finishing One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I moved on to a hardcover edition of Mette Ivie Harrison’s YA fantasy The Princess and the Hound. I met Mette at the Life, the Universe and Everything conference in Orem, Utah. We shared a fabulous Thai dinner one night, then she was kind enough to drive me to the airport to catch my flight home. Along the way to SLC airport, we agreed to exchange author’s copies of our books. She sent me The Princess and the Hound and I sent her a couple of my backlist romance novels. I’m loving Mette’s book with its very unique take on magic. It’s a very hard to put down story. And isn’t that a gorgeous cover?

    What I’m rediscovering about reading hardcopy is that it has some definite advantages over the electronic versions. First, it’s far easier to see where I am in the book (somehow, the percentage on the Kindle doesn’t cue me quite the same way). I think I emotionally pace myself as I read, thinking differently about the story at, say, the half-way point than I do three-quarters through. It’s easy to flip through to find how many pages to the end of the chapter so I can decide whether to keep reading or to turn out the light and go to sleep. It’s a piece of cake to turn back to some previous part of the book to recall who a character was or to refresh my memory if it’s been a day since I last read the book.

    There are downsides to paper too. A paper book is heavier than the Kindle, particularly the hardcover. I like to be able to hold a book in one hand (sometimes I’m doing something with the other, like eat lunch) and that’s easier with the Kindle. It’s easier to turn the pages on the Kindle. And if I set the Kindle down, it might timeout, but it will keep my place. A paper book will often close itself if I have to set it down quickly. If I haven’t stuffed a bookmark in there, I have to search for where I left off.

    So I suspect I’ll still be reading the bulk of my books on my Kindle. But I’ve realized I enjoy reading the occasional paper book. Particularly when it’s autographed by the author, like Mette’s, or full of clever illustrations, like Jasper Fforde’s. It’s lovely to have the option though, to go either way.

    What do you think? Die-hard reader of books on paper? Or are you loving using an e-reader? Drop me a comment and let me know.

  • LTUE – First Day

    The nighttime view from my hotel room.

    I should confess up front that I got to far fewer workshops than I’d planned today because I spent so much time talking to some really great people. I’d slept in a little so it was 10am before I traversed the obstacle course of road construction to the UVU campus. This involved dashing across streets, serpentining around the roundabout, and bobbing and weaving amidst crazy drivers.

    My intention was to catch the rest of the panel discussion, What Exactly Does an Editor Do? that included my editor, Stacy Whitman. But before I got there, I crossed paths with an unpublished writer who had just finished a book and wanted to know what happens next. We ended up finding a quiet corner while I explained to her about agents and submissions, pointing out the pitfalls she might encounter. So I didn’t walk into Stacy’s panel discussion until about the last 15 minutes.

    Next stop was Middle Grade Books for Boys which Stacy was moderating. My main focus is on young adult, but I do have one MG book that I’ve considered expanding into a series, so I wanted to get more information for that age group. The panelists were Tyler Whitesides (Janitors) and E.J. Patten (The Hunter Chronicles).

    First, they clarified the basics. The age range for MG is 8 through 12, and the length is 50,000 to 70,000 words. It isn’t just a matter of age or length, though. The themes of an MG book have to be age-appropriate. The stories are more adventure-based and if there is any romance, it’s puppy love.

    They mentioned that some MG series do transition to YA within the series (Harry Potter is a prime example), but in general, there is not as much of a market in YA for boys. Boys tend to go directly from MG to adult fantasy. Boys also love non-fiction.

    A writer should think about what boys like to figure out how to write for that market. Characters should be a year or two older than the target audience because kids read up. Age 13 is probably the top age for MG characters.

    Boys like slapstick and potty humor. Kids in general like familiarity and will read the same books over and over.

    After the MG panel, I got caught up in another conversation or two and so arrived late at the panel discussion on self-publishing. Since I’ve self-pubbed some of my backlist, I was interested in what new information I might glean. I confess (again–I must be channeling my Catholic upbringing), I was a bit put off by some of what was presented in this panel. When asked “what works” in the way of promotion, the answers varied from the “throw whatever you can out there, maybe something will work” to “book bombs so you’ll be on the bestseller list for a day.” A couple suggestions sounded reasonable–put up a free short story to entice readers to check out your book, and also to look for long term success rather than immediate short term results.

    One panelist’s answer to “What do you find frustrating?” was that formatting, editing, and promoting take so much time, it impacts how much time there is left to write. Where I see myself as a writer, these folks have to be publisher/writers and I don’t think the proportion of writing to publishing would satisfy me.

    But here’s what really raised my hackles. At one point during the Q&A, someone in the audience asked “So, should I self-publish first, or go to the traditional route first?” The panel’s answer–self-publish first because a traditional publisher might discover you that way. I wanted to stand up and shout, No! That’s not how it works! Your odds of having a traditional publisher discover your self-pubbed book out of tens of thousands are as bad as hitting the lottery. Self-publish if that’s what you believe in, but don’t do it as a route to traditional publishing. I kept my opinion to myself. Well, until now.

    Next up, a screenwriting related workshop I had arranged ahead of time to jump in on. Michaelbrent Collings and Blake Casselman were kind enough to let me horn in on their already scheduled panel. They had planned for the panel to be entirely Q&A so I fit in pretty well. I like to think that I brought something to the discussion having spent a number of years writing screenplays.

    I headed to lunch (side note: it is apparently possible for a 3 Musketeers candy bar to age to the point of rock-hardness, based on the one I bought at the UVU cafeteria) then retraced my perilous path back to the hotel for a break. After my R&R, I again danced around Orem traffic to return to campus, got lost for a bit in the IT department (thank you, help desk for getting me on the wireless network), then found Stacy again. She introduced me around to a few more people, I got into a few more lengthy conversations, and never did make it back into a workshop. My bad.

    Stacy and I connected again later and she introduced me to the lovely ladies who became my dinner companions (Gwynne Meeks & Audrey Gonzalez). She also gave me an intro to James Dashner (The Maze Runner) with whom Stacy promised she would “hook me up, Utah-style” for dinner Friday night.

    Japanese Pan Noodles at Noodles & Company with Gwynne and Audrey, back to UVU for the tail end of Stacy’s last panel (where I learned about a story featuring an LDS vampire systematically killing her family–cool!), then we added another new friend, Brittany Heiner, and the four of us ventured out for incredibly yummy ice cream at Cold Stone.

    I am full of knowledge and tasty ice cream. It has been a perfect day.

  • Hopelessly Devoted to E

    I was e-published pretty early in the game (my SF romance, Eternity, came out as an e-book in 1998). But I was definitely not an early adopter of reading e-books. I always felt pretty guilty about that. Here I was, an e-published author, on the cutting edge of publishing, and I read nothing but paper books.

    The thing was, back then the options for reading e-books were not the greatest. There was reading on your computer (ugh), or using one of the clunky e-readers that were available. I did try it for a while, first using an eBookman, then a Palm Pilot. But with both of them, the experience was awkward and uncomfortable. I always went running back to my paper books.

    Then I bought an iPod, which I grew to love. And downloaded the Kindle app. I started reading books on that tiny screen and realized I really liked it. The device was nice and small, the backlit screen allowed me to read in bed after my husband turned off the lights to go to sleep. I could buy and download a new book from the comfort of my own home (or anywhere else with wireless) and receive it immediately.

    I was hooked. A few months after I started reading on the iPod, I realized I wanted a bigger screen and a better display for reading books. My birthday was coming up (which means it was just about a year ago), so a Kindle went on my B-day list. I’m pretty cheap, even when someone else is buying my gift, so I went for the lower priced non-3g model.

    And oh, what a wondrous time it’s been this past year. I’ve always been a voracious reader, but I’ve probably upped my reading by 15 or 20 percent. I seem to fly through books now, even with the slightly more awkward button click instead of touch screen technology. I love-love-love my Kindle, only putting it down this last year to read maybe 2 or 3 print books.

    What’s kind of funny about this is that I still read a “dead tree” newspaper. Yeah, I read many articles on the web, but I enjoy the tabloid format of an actual Sacramento Bee. Until we have a holographic substitute that I can “hold” and is as big as a current day newspaper, I’m sticking to paper for my morning read.

    But my pleasure reading–all e, all the time. I love you, Kindle.