Tag: publishing

Picture Book Update

I will have to roll up my sleeves and format my new book in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. This is something I wanted to avoid, but I don’t think I can hire someone for the formatting, mostly because I want to have the book in a  finalized draft before I hire the illustrator: I need to know the page count so I know how many illustrations will be necessary.

I think I’ll place the text on the left page, surrounded by an attractive border, with a full-page color illustration on the right page. I’ll print the books in 8 x 8 inches via KDP, with bleed, which will make for a small but adequately sized paperback picture book.

I’m frustrated that Vellum, my usual formatting software, doesn’t offer the full range of trim sizes available on Amazon. It’s set up for novels, of course, but I  thought I could make a picture book out of it with a little coaxing. However, none of its available trim sizes are suitable for that, so Adobe is my best bet. I have some experience with Adobe Illustrator but none with InDesign. This could be fun, especially since I will now have to worry about all kinds of typographical things that Vellum handled for me automatically, such as runts and orphans and so forth.

In slightly different news, I noticed that Grammarly has rolled out its own “artificial intelligence” system, GrammarlyGO, which has automatically been integrated into my Word plugin. Although there’s been a lot of buzz about what it might mean for authors to start using AI in their writing, Grammarly, which is hugely popular, already functioned on similar principles, so a lot of us have already been using AI to assist with our writing, at least in a limited fashion, without knowing it. That Grammarly is an “AI” system similar to ChatGPT explains both why it is more dynamic than most grammar checkers and why it sometimes gives screwy, ungrammatical suggestions: I once had it suggest that I write “more bottomless” instead of “deeper,” apparently because it could comprehend how to employ a synonym grammatically but couldn’t understand subtle differences in meaning, and it has recently developed the annoying habit of suggesting comma splices. If it degrades over time as other AIs do, it will probably become useless in a few years.

If nothing else, it is good for catching my spelling mistakes and cutting out unnecessary words, but it is designed more for business emails than fiction writing.

Anyway, GrammarlyGO is interesting to play around with. You can see from its suggestions in the image at the top of this post that it can parse a document reasonably well, but its tips are quite basic. The first of its three recommendations is the standard “show don’t tell,” which isn’t bad in itself but is inappropriate for the present work, which is a children’s fairy tale. The second recommendation is vague, possibly a stock suggestion it gives when it doesn’t know what else to say. Probably, it can’t understand the conflict that’s already present, or perhaps it doesn’t know how to handle a story this short. And as for the third suggestion–that’s already in the story, which is written with a moral appropriate for its young target audience: The importance of gratitude. But I’m unsurprised that an AI can’t pick that up since it’s built into the story’s fabric and never explicitly stated.

Return of the ‘Rags and Muffin’ Hardcover

I earlier reported that an Amazon order of my novel Rags and Muffin resulted in a delivery of the volume printed by IngramSpark. I had no explanation for this and still don’t.

I needed some additional copies recently and ordered them, again from Amazon. What I got this time resembled the test printing I originally got from Amazon, which in my opinion is superior to the IngramSpark version.

I do not know why I got IngramSpark books before. I do not know what will arrive in the mail if you order a hardcover.

However, the difference between the two versions might not be noticeable to most readers. The Amazon version appears to have sturdier binding, though whether it actually holds up better over time or whether that’s merely a cosmetic difference, I can’t say. The image on its cover is also clearer, but only slightly.

Rags and Muffin back cover.

I think this is a good-looking book. Amazon only recently began offering hardcovers through Kindle Direct Printing, but the product they produce is of high quality. The printing is clear, the paper is bright but not too bright, the cover is good, and the book overall is solid, with a lot of heft.

It happens that Vellum, which I use for formatting, updated right before this book went live on Amazon, so I was able to give the internal formatting some slight improvements over what I originally planned to release. Because the cover was already made, I couldn’t change the page count, so it was too late to use some of Vellum’s newer, more creative layout options. But you nonetheless get a fine-looking interior with large, clear type.

Rags and Muffin interior.

Vellum is expensive, but it’s one purchase I definitely don’t regret: I can format my books myself without hiring a pro, which means I can instantly correct any lingering typos if I become aware of them. This novel did (yet again) get an additional proofread recently from a generous reviewer, and all he found was a missing quotation mark—which has now been added where it belongs. I can’t claim it’s perfect, but it is a very clean manuscript, unusually so for either indie or tradpub.

The only downside to the hardback is that Amazon forces a starting price that’s decidedly high for an indie book. Naturally, I make most of my sales in eBooks, so I’m debating whether continuing to offer hardcovers for my future titles is worth the expense.

Rags and Muffin Go Hard

As I’ve previously mentioned, Amazon has recently added a hardcover option to Amazon KDP. This isn’t really a possibility (or, probably, a desireability) for Jake and the Dynamo, but I decided I wanted to make it an option for Rags and Muffin.

To that end, I updated my order with MiblArt and got a cover for a hardback edition. The image you see above is from Amazon’s previewer, which has okayed the cover art. Everything else in the sample seems to be good as well, so we’ll offer this alongside the eBook and paperback on the release date, which is still December 10th.

I’ve seen some other authors show off their Amazon hardcovers; they look good and have the cover art printed directly onto the hard surface, with no dust jacket.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

On the Possibility of Hardcovers

Amazon has just added the ability to publish hardcovers through its print-on-demand service. I’ve seen other indie authors talking about this in hushed whispers, but the option just appeared on my KDP account today.

To amuse myself, I tried setting up a hardcover version of Jake and the Dynamo. The results were not unexpected. Although the interior dimensions of my manuscript are fine, the dimensions of the extant cover image are way off, as you can see from the image at the top of this post. Thanks to Amazon’s insistence that a custom cover be uploaded as a single file, this is no easy fix.

I’ve idly dreamed before of a hardcover of Jake and the Dynamo with full-color interior illustrations, but there are three things that make that difficult. The first, of course, is the need to redo the cover with a considerably larger image. I don’t know exactly what that would mean for the artists who made my cover, but I know it would mean a lot of money out of my pocket. The second thing, which is a much bigger nuisance, is that the software I’m using for the interior, Vellum, is unaware that Amazon offers full-color printing, so it automatically renders my interior illustrations in black and white. I will not be surprised if a future update fixes that problem, but that update hasn’t come yet.

The third problem, of course, is that the book would be ridiculously expensive. The paperback versions of both novels in this series already cost considerably more than I would like, probably because of the combination of length and illustrations. Judging from my sales, the novels are much more popular in Kindle and Kindle Unlimited versions than in print. I’m not sure what a full-color version would have to cost, but it would likely be upwards of twenty bucks.

However, since I now know this option is available, a hardcover version of Rags and Muffin may be a real possibility since it has no interior illustrations aside from the black-and-white chapter headings.

‘Rags and Muffin’ Is Finished

I know I’ve been radio silent again for a while, but that’s because I was again in one of those stages where I have a project I want to complete but it seems to be taking too long. But, today, I have it done—the final edits and formatting for Rags and Muffin, the novel I am planning to release after Dead 2 Rites, which will release after Jake and the Dynamo.

This took longer than expected for several reasons, both related and unrelated to the project itself. One thing that took a while was inserting all the internal links: This novel has a glossary in the back, mostly because, when I was a kid, I thought novels with glossaries, such as Dune or Watership Down, were extra special. But in the world of eBooks, a functional glossary requires hyperlinks in the text. Vellum, my formatting software, has a limited ability to add internal links (though it has fewer options than I would like), and today, I got the links done.

The cover art for this project hasn’t been made yet. However, I uploaded the PDF of the paperback and mocked up a fake cover on Amazon KDP so I could use the previewer to make sure the internal margins are correct.

The chapter headers and section breaks are from Barbusco comics. At the moment, I only have the one chapter-header image, the gun next to a teacup. I’m thinking about commissioning a few more so there isn’t just one image at the head of every chapter, but if I do that, I can get them in the same dimensions so they won’t affect the page count. The complete PDF of the paperback clocks in at 490 pages, including the front matter.

Real Life

The only remaining delay has to do with real-life stuff: The magical girls and I are buying a house. We had been shopping for a while, but a house that met our wants came available suddenly and unexpectedly. We’re supposed to be moving in at the end of next week if all the paperwork is complete on time, and for that reason, after this post, I’m going to go radio silent again for a bit because I’ll be focused on packing, closing, and moving.

Release Dates

Because we suddenly had to drop money on the house to avoid losing it, there isn’t a lot in the kitty for my publication and advertising costs. After we’ve made the down payment, I’ll be better situated to assess our budget and figure out what I can do, but I think we should have enough for some modest promotion.

For that reason, tentative release dates for the books are:

  1. Jake and the Dynamo:

  2. Dead 2 Rites:

  3. Rags and Muffin:

I am also (cross fingers) hoping to have the fourth volume of Jake and the Dynamo out by the end of the year.

Those are tenative, and I might tweak them by a day or three as I learn the business and, for example, figure out which days of the week are best for a release. Some unforeseen disaster or delay may also happen, but since two of the books are ready to go except for minor tweaks, I don’t think there should be any serious problem.

This has, of course, taken longer than I originally, optimistically anticipated. I can’t say I’m surprised because I haven’t self-published before; I’m just glad I didn’t have a Kickstarter because delaying release on a pre-funded project is bad form. I may, however, consider Kickstarters in the future when I’ve got the hang of this.

Jake and the Dynamo, Re:Formatted

I’ve got the cover art farmed out for both Jake and the Dynamo and its sequel, Dead 2 Rites. With fingers crossed, I proclaim that Jake and the Dynamo will see its re-release next month, and Dead 2 Rites the month after. I can’t absolutely confirm that yet because art is the major factor again, and I’m not the one making the art.

The re-release is a new edition with a revised text as well as new formatting. The screenshots here are from Dead 2 Rites, but the J&tD re-release will look the same.

The new edition of the first book will be thicker than the previous one though the revised text is slightly shorter. The second book is a hefty 530 pages, partly because it is a long novel (132,000 words) but also because of layout: The layout of these books is more polished than before with a larger font and wider line spacing for more comfortable reading.

The internal illustrations of the first book will be the same. Roffles Lowell was not entirely pleased with the way his drawings originally turned out in the paperback; however, aside from uploading the biggest and best files I can, I have no real control over the appearance of the illustrations, so I assume they will look the same as in the first edition.

For Dead 2 Rites, however, Roffles produced black-and-white versions that we hope will print more clearly.

Internal illustration from Dead 2 Rites.
Example of an internal illustration.

Both books will feature full-color internal illustrations in the eBook versions. The books will go up on multiple platforms simultaneously, but on this blog and in my social media accounts, I will probably only advertise the Amazon versions since that’s where sales rank really matters.

Print editions with full-color internal illustrations are possible, but there would need to be a strong interest.

I am starting in on the formatting of Rags and Muffin, which is the now-official title of my third book. This begins a separate series. Previously, the working title of this book was written as Rag & Muffin to emphasize the pun, but that would likely cause a lot of grief later on since HTML and ampersands don’t get along. An ampersand will likely appear on the cover, but the official title has “and” in it.

Printed pages from Dead 2 Rites.
Example of printed pages.

Experimenting with Vellum

I am currently in the “completely bewildered” stage of preparing to self-publish my work, with the goal of releasing no less that five (three, absolute minimum) books next year. I’m considering several options, thinking about services I might need, looking at necessary or unnecessary software, and so forth.

I have just finished (?) editing the first volume of Jake and the Dynamo. This may sound like unnecessary fiddling, since the book has been edited and even published previously, but I am treating the next release as if it is the first, a complete start-over, and I want to present readers with the best, cleanest, most professional text I can. This new version is, at present, almost 3,000 words shorter, entirely because of improvements in style and grammar.

One thing I’ve thought I would likely do is purchase Vellum. Although it’s enormously expensive, it is more or less the only software that prepares a manuscript for multiple formats with minimal hassle. Its creators allow you to download it and use all its options, forcing payment only when you’re ready to generate the files.

Thus, I have been sitting here sipping a gimlet (one part gin, one part Rose’s lime juice, and nothing else, as Raymond Chandler explains) while familiarizing myself with Vellum and getting a handle on what it can—and can’t—do.

It is as user-friendly as it claims to be, but that seriously limits its abilities. Some formatting I have in Word, formatting I thought was quite minimal, has been stripped out of my Vellum file. For example, it doesn’t allow lettered lists:

Lists in Vellum.
An unordered list in Vellum.

This is a little disappointing, but I can easily envision a reason for it: The idea is maximum compatibility across readers and file types. I found some software previously that allowed for edting EPUB files in XML, and I originally thought that put me on easy street since editing XML is something I can do, but I soon discovered that editing files by hand was time-consuming and also produced unexpected results in different types of eBook readers.

Vellum, despite the claims in its advertisements, feels very limiting. It offers only a handful of styles with minimal customization, few fonts, and few layout options, but it also keeps you from inadvertently creating messed-up files that don’t work on major platforms. The few layouts it allows look good. Sme things I want, such as handwriting fonts in a few spots, aren’t possible—but then again, that’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t show up on most e-readers anyway, and eBooks are where I can expect the most sales. Kindle, for example, strips out all custom fonts and uses Amazon’s proprietary font in their place.

Also, in this first run, I experimented with Microsoft Word’s styles to produce the cleanest, lightest manuscript I could. A lot of what I did transfered straight into Vellum, and Vellum was even able to intuit some of the document’s features (most especially, its section breaks). Some things, however, did not transfer—particularly, text that was set to be in all caps (rather than typed in all caps by hand). To make sure everything is kosher, I probably need to make a few more tweaks to my DOCX file before I import it to Vellum again.

Superversive Press Shutting Its Doors

I have been sitting on this information for a while, but I have seen it posted publicly in another space, so I think I can say this: Superversive Press, which published Jake and the Dynamo and was planning to publish Dead to Rites and Rag & Muffin, is shutting its doors.

I am not party to the reasons, though I assume they are financial (small-press publishing is always a risky business), and I am highly allergic to office politics and the like—so if any of that is involved, I am ignorant of it. I can only tip my hat to Jason Rennie, the publisher, and L. Jagi Lamplighter, my editor, and thank them both for taking a chance on my enthusiastically written but extremely niche work.

I am starting over from here. The future of my books is uncertain, but the novels I have completed will be published, somehow or some way. I believe Jake and the Dynamo deserves a complete arc, mostly because I know how it ends and it’s kick-awesome.

As for Rag & Muffin, it is probably foolish to say this in public, but I have long sensed that a higher power wanted it written and would grind me into powder if it wasn’t, so I think it will somehow be published too.

I will keep you posted.

The State of the ‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Project

Featured image: “Dazzling Bijou” by puddinprincess.

I have my notes back from L. Jagi Lamplighter, who graciously agreed to provide editing services for Jake and the Dynamo. She tells me that she and John C. Wright both found the book very funny, but she also made some incisive criticisms pointing out how it could be improved.

Writers in my circle had praised Lamplighter for her abilities as an editor, which is one of the reasons I had hoped she’d take me on. The praise was accurate; I had heard with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes have seen. She has an excellent command of story mechanics, and she knows exactly how to pinpoint problems precisely while at the same time framing her criticisms broadly enough to leave the author maximal freedom to work. On top of that, she criticizes in such a gracious style that she short-circuits the “you’re kicking my baby” response, which can be the knee-jerk reaction of some writers, especially newbs. Upon reading her advice, instead of the dismay I might normally feel when having my shortcomings explained to me, I felt an eagerness to get back to work.

Most of the changes she requested are minor, and she said I could probably make them in a single sitting. I think that would be one of her sittings, but it’s likely to take three or four of mine.

I have not had much time to write this summer as I’m currently working while getting a master’s degree in half the usual time. However, my summer term ends in two weeks, and then I’ll have a two-week break from schooling. That’s when I plan to make all the edits, put together a submission package, and get this sent off.

Lamplighter urged me to contact the editor of a particular press I probably shouldn’t name in a post yet. She said she’s already pitched my book there, and that the publisher is interested. That’s no guarantee of anything, of course, but it’s encouraging. I originally started this novel as a lark and expected to self-publish, but if an indie press wants to pick it up, that would be great.

I have my fingers crossed that the as-yet-unnamed publisher might be interested in not only the novel, but also the illustrations by Roffles Lowell—which he is hard at work on and has shown me preliminaries to prove it. I hired Lowell when self-publishing was still the plan, and I’ll be sure that he gets compensated and gets his work displayed one way or the other, but it would be awesome if I could convince a publisher that this is a light novel and thus needs illustrations. Obviously, an indie publisher such as the one to which I’ll be submitting is more likely to be persuaded on this than a big-name publisher, who would laugh contemptuously at any author who submitted illustrations with his written work.

I like working with Lowell, and I like seeing what he produces. We’re both newbs, so if we could break into the market together, that would be cool.

Since I’m now planning to submit to a publisher, I think it best if I put a halt to the web postings of the novel at least until I have publication matters squared away. Thus, the book is now on indefinite hiatus, for real this time.

If I end up self-publishing as originally planned, I’ll go back to posting the chapters here, but if I’m going to be publishing through a publisher, I should stop posting chapters for free consumption until further notice.

I’m not going to take down the already-published chapters (unless instructed to), but I don’t plan to add any more for the time being. Besides, as noted, I have no more to post at the moment, as I simply haven’t had much time to produce them.

On top of that, I’m going to be changing the way I tell this story anyway. My original intention was to write the whole thing and dump it on Amazon Kindle, but having realized that I have multiple novels’ worth of material, I’d like to switch gears. I will be (at Lamplighter’s recommendation) rewriting chapter 19 to make a better conclusion to volume 1, and then I’m going to take stock of chapters 20 and beyond to see how I can better shape them into a self-contained book. Now that I’m doing this as a series instead of one giant novel, I wish to ensure that each volume has its own complete arc, so I’ll probably be rearranging plot elements.

That’s all for now. Jake and the Dynamo is on hiatus, but the reviews and essays will continue until morale improves.