PaperBox Books

So I’m feeling good. I’ve exceeded the NaNo minimum count and I’m within reach of my own goal. I know, what a way to jinx it.

I decided I could take a half an hour to look at a bright shiny. Scrivener for Windows is in Beta and I wanted to see what it’s about. No, I didn’t download it. I’m not completely crazy. I did look at the video here. After looking at the video, I went to my calendar for December and made a note to try to get on the beta if it’s still open.

Two reasons I think this will be a great tool.

You can edit on line. Up to now, I’ve printed out my manuscript in scenes and analyzed each scene for revision. I printed it out because Word isn’t that easy to navigate when you are looking at it piece by piece. With Scrivener, I can update the index card with a note on each scene and save a tree.

The other reason, I can plot and research all in one document. Yay.

Finally for all you Apple lovers out there, I’m still not going Mac. Why? Well, with Scrivener I can save in a number of different formats, but not a .doc. Most services that upload and prep books for e-publishing need a .doc format. So, I’ll hang onto my Windows laptop and applications.

One more big tip. If you complete NaNo and verify your win, you get a 50% discount on the purchase price of Scrivener for windows. Here’s the info.

Happy Writing

Perry

No Comments | In: Happening in the Market, Opinions, Writing Tips | tags: editing, NaNoWriMo, Process, Writing Tips. | #

Hi, there are any number of conversations going on around the blogsphere and the tweet world, and I’m sure off line in that old fashioned medium of voice conversations about this subject. Sue and I have had these conversations off line, too. It comes down to why would an author choose to work with an indie publisher rather than self publish, especially e-books.

We think it comes down to quality and reputation. I have bought some e-books recently, not so much because I wanted entertainment but to research. I’m not going to name names but here are some observations.

First, I bought books from Amazon.com and Smashwords, to ensure I had something from both ends of the spectrum.

What did I see?

1. Stories that hadn’t started by the time I hit delete on my iTouch. So many of the books I read gave a ton of back story.
2. Stories that had inconsistent point of view, or a point of view that allowed the author to tell the story, not show it.
3. Stories with lots of ‘stage direction’ – character stops the car, turns off the ignition, opens the door, crosses the lawn, climbs the stairs, takes out the key, unlocks the door, opens the door, and walks in. (I’m not exaggerating)
4. Stories with stilted dialogue. The big trigger is to look at the grammar in your dialogue, not even English teachers speak in correct and complete sentences all the time.

When it comes to uploading your book to Smashwords or to Amazon, you can pretty much do it with a click of the mouse. If you only revised with your own opinions, you won’t have seen what needs to be done. If only your mother, or sister, or friend, have read it, you won’t have professional advice on making the book readable and compelling.

An indie publisher will work with you to make the final changes to your manuscript to make it a marketable book. The readers for indie publishers aren’t reading for enjoyment – although that’s a nice bonus – they are reading to see if you have grabbed your reader enough to make they want to read to the end, they are looking for structural issues, and the last thing they will look for is grammar and punctuation.

If you think you need to work with someone who will give you advice on story revising and polishing, check out our submission guidelines at PaperBox Books

Happy writing.

Perry

1 Comment | In: Industry, Opinions, Submissions | tags: audience, editing, publishing, Writing Tips, Your reader. | #

I’ve recently started posting on The Hub. It’s one of the online writer communities I belong to. It’s rather a neat format with information on almost any subject imaginable by posters such as myself – almost like a personal-experience wikipedia.

I added a post regarding revision and thought I would cross post it here.

To see my post, please go to http://hubpages.com/hub/First-Steps-in-Revision.

It tells a bit about my own personal editing/ revision process.

Cheers,

Sue

No Comments | In: Awesome Links | tags: editing, revision, The Hub. | #