Blog Number Twenty-one

          I have come to realize that I would make a very poor school teacher.  When I run out of patience, I tend to get a wee bit testy.  I have trouble with the idea that a student can read instructions and then ignore them completely.
         Today's blog is titled: HOW TO PUBLISH WITH KINDLE (Nook has the same rules).  If you read the "submission guidelines" for either Kindle or Nook, you will become so confused that you'll be tempted to run out and spend several hundred dollars on software that supposedly makes the process simple.  Don't waste your money.
         A very kind lady from British Columbia I met through my Facebook Fiction Writers Group simplified the entire process.
         If you do all of your writing in the proper format to begin with, then the process of uploading will be hassle-free.  I am a Mac-user and have been since 1989.  I do all of my writing on an Apple program called "Pages."  I have purchased "Microsoft Office for Mac" that I only use for the publishing process.  First is your title page--Title of your book and author.  Second page is "copyright by (your name) Month 2012.  Next line: Kindle edition.  You can add your personalized notation.  For my Smoky Mtn Murder Series, mine says  "Although Gatlinburg is a real city nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, Old Towne and all the characters therein are fictional."  On the last page of your novel insert a page break and add "About the Author."  I give my website, Facebook and a gmail account that I've set up for this purpose.  Once I've finished my novel, I cut and paste the entire manuscript from Pages to Word.  Make certain that all your formatting has come through.
        If you write on MS Word, here's what you should do: go into draft view, turn on view invisibles, set the margins (one inch all around), set automatic indent at five spaces, remove headers, footers and page numbers.  Use Times New Roman (no fancy fonts), size at 10 (you can make title a little bigger), single space.  At the end of each chapter, insert page break, go down two lines and type in "Chapter Heading".  If you hit the "enter" key MORE than three times, it will result in a blank page in Kindle.  Do not use underline.  You can use BOLD, italics and you are allowed to use the "center" function.  Do not hit the space bar multiple times, or the tab key.  Unless you are writing non-fiction, do not use a table of contents.  Once on Kindle, the page numbers will be all wrong.
           Once all that is accomplished, go back into "layout" view and "Save as" html or web page.
If you do not have a Kindle (and it's free on my iPad), let me explain that the reader has the option to make the print large for the visually impaired, thus a 200 page novel will be 400 pages.  The reader can also set the font size to their liking, also increasing or decreasing the number of pages.  That's why you remove the headers, footers and page numbers.
          Okay!  Now you are ready for the uploading procedure.  I create a file folder which I've titled "Ready for Kindle".  You will need the following:  Your html manuscript, your cover art in .jpeg (Use a thumbnail version.  They will reject large files), your bio, your back-cover blurb, your photo (Kindle helps you create an author page for free).
            One of the most important features is to select seven key words to help the readers find your book through a search engine.  Readers know what they want to read:  mystery, love story, ghost, paranormal, historical, Civil War, etc., etc.  Help them find you with a wise choice of words.  Don't try to be clever. 
            If you want to get paid, you'll have to give them your Social Security Number.  You can also give them your bank routing number and every month they transfer earnings directly into your designated bank account.  (that's my favorite feature).
Once you have gathered all the necessary data in your special folder, go to Kindle's website.  https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help
            You need to have a prior account with Amazon.  (who doesn't have that?).  Go to the left, under "Publish your book" and follow their instructions regarding "Add Title."  They will assign you an ISBN number.
            They also request that you download the Kindle Previewer.  Don't argue.  Just do it.  You have the opportunity to glance through the finished product to make certain that all your formatting is correct.  Select "enable" and they will protect your digital rights.  One of my early books (back in the 1990's) is being sold in India and I don't get a penny in royalty.
           Please send me an email if you don't understand any portion of this guideline and I will do my best to clarify.   srhinock8@gmail.com

Blog Number Twenty

Haven't posted a blog in over a month.  I've endured Thanksgiving, back surgery, a bad chest cold, and Christmas.  I'm starting the New Year 2012 feeling hale, hearty and mentally refreshed.

I've come across a technical software problem facing many authors trying to get their manuscripts published with Kindle, Nook and Smashwords.  Whereas www.createspace.com will accept your manuscript in "save as" PDF format, the e-readers will not.  Createspace simply prints your document as you present it--even your mistakes.  The e-readers requirements are entirely different.

As a Mac-person, I'm not technically proficient in Microsoft Word.  I write in Mac's "Pages" and don't transfer to MS Word until I have finished a novel.  However, if you will pull down the view menu, "Show invisibles" will allow to see the formatting mistakes you have made.  "Hard tabs"  (that is physically hitting the tab key for each paragraph indent) at the beginning of each paragraph are not acceptable.  Unfortunately, you must remove each one individually.  If Microsoft has a "one-step" remedy, please let me know.  You must set the indent for the entire document and let it happen automatically.  You have to be in "draft" format to make changes to your entire document.  Formatting done to the entire document is reversible.

Also, you must insert a hard "page break" at the end of each chapter.  That is, pulling down the “Insert” menu and choosing “Page Break.”  Simply hitting the "enter" key multiple times to start a new chapter on a new page, will not be acceptable.  They will not accept any overly fancy fonts, but will accept bold and italics.

Another must is to remove page numbers for Kindle and Nook.  Because e-readers change from landscape to portrait and the print can be small or enlarged for the visually impaired, a 200-page novel can be squeezed to 100 pages or enlarged to 400 pages.  My Kindle (which I downloaded for free to my iPad)  has a bar at the bottom to let you know where you are.  Every time you open a Kindle book, it automatically goes back where you left off.

So, here we are.  Page one is your title and author name.  I recommend researching Amazon to make certain your title is as unique as possible.  You don't want to be number zillion on a common title.  Using "alignment" for centering is acceptable.  Page two is for your dedications, etc.  Both Nook and Kindle will give you their own new ISBN numbers.  Do not use any other numbers given by other publishers.  "Kindle Edition published in 2012".  On the last page of your novel, insert page break and add your bio, website address, Facebook address, and a list of your previous novels, if any.
I can't caution you enough about proof reading.  Any thing put out in cyberspace will be there FOREVER.  Once you have your error-free manuscript, open your document and pull down the file menu to "save as html."

This is what you will need organized before going to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) website:
Manuscript in html.
Front page cover art in .jpeg
    my son the photographer can do websites and cover art for a fee
    mwooten54@comcast.net
Your complete bio with photo (for prospective buyers on Kindle website)
Back cover blurb
Choosing 5 key words to direct Amazon/Kindle surfers to your book
        This is extremely important
Website address
         Suggestions:  weebly.com, wordpress, godaddy andGoogle
         will help you do this on your own.  Or call on a relative to do
         the job.

Just received this information from Paula Petty:
Microsoft word (at least my version) has a tool (usually at the top of the screen) that by default has "normal spacing" highlighted. However, you can highlight your  text and click "no spacing" and it takes away all line spacing, tabs, etc. I wonder if this would help--before you  save as html.

Blog Number Nineteen

There's an eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.  Every body knows he's there, but nobody wants to talk about him...except me.  I'll talk.

I've written a lot of love scenes.  But I ask you to stop and think.  How many nice, pretty words are out there in our American vocabulary to describe an act as old as time?  Darn few.  And I figure I've used all of them more than once.  Remember, I said nice, pretty words.  Finally, I grew jaded, tired of my fruitless search for those illusive words.

Then it dawned on me...Cozy Mysteries.  They kill people and they do it without sex.  Oh wow!  I could be the next Agatha Christie.  After all these years, I've found my new niche.

So, I headed to Amazon (virtually speaking) and purchased a stack of cozy mysteries by many different authors.  Several notable things kept popping up: a continuing character (female amateur sleuth), plus a super intelligent dog or cat helping the amateur human to solve mysteries.

Hey, I'm a big animal lover.  I can do this.  I used to raise and show Dandie Dinmont Terriers--a rare breed from Scotland.  I was an instructor at the local Obedience Club (B.A. that's before arthritis).  As I grew older, I decided on a smaller breed and switched to Norwich Terriers.   After he died and I got even older (bone years are the same as dog years), we decided to switch to cats--they don't need to be walked or taken to obedience classes.

My monumental decision was made.  I would start writing Cozy Mysteries.

I was giddy with excitement as I turned on my computer and stared at the blank screen.  Hmm, I was going to have to think about this one for awhile.

Blog Number Eighteen

"Where do you get your ideas from?" is another question I'm often asked.  It's a hard one to answer.  I can get an idea from a newspaper article I've read or heard on the evening news.  It might be a car passing me on the freeway driven by a hooded character, or a bum at the exit with a sign "will work for food."  Even a TV show, documentary or movie can get my juices flowing.

Zap!  This is where creativity gets launched.  I start thinking..."what if?"

My best advice to you is to have pencil and paper handy, or if you're on the road a great deal, how about a hand-held recorder.  Can the smart phones do that?  Later, I type them up and put them in a file.  When I'm in between novels, I can get out the file and thumb through my old ideas--some I had completely forgotten.  One might tickle my fancy and launch my next journey.

Which of my ten novels is my favorite?  That's like asking a mother which is her favorite child.  Of course, I can answer that one with ease since I only had one son.  Definitely, he is my favorite.

Historicals (and I would imagine that space and futuristic plots might fall in this category) are the most difficult to write.  Your facts must be accurate.  You can't kill someone with a firearm that had yet to be invented; or have mail delivered to your castle before the era of Benjamin Franklin; or mow the grass before the invention of the rotary lawn mower.  You think....well, it's fiction, I can do whatever I want.  Yes, you can, but the whole idea of writing a story is to make it believable.  You want to take your reader on a journey and glaring errors snap them out of the mood that you've been trying to create.

Blog Number Seventeen

         So, how do you write an entire novel when you only have small "snippets" of time?  If you posed this same question to a dozen different writers (both published and unpublished) and you would hear about a dozen different systems.  One system that seems popular is to use sticky notes with scenes written out and stuck on a bulletin board.  This never worked for me.
          One book that might give you some good ideas is "The Weekend Novelist", by Robert Ray.  Whereas his system wouldn't work for me, I still enjoyed the book and especially liked the way he attacked the subject.
          Next you should analyze your life.  Figure out EXACTLY when and how much time you are able to devote to your writing.  My personal experience is that you need at least one undisturbed hour.  Some folks start at the beginning and just plow all the way through beginning to end and then go back and edit.  No single method is better than another.  I can only tell you what works for me and what works for some of my writer friends.  You must find (through trial and error) what works for you.
            So here's my system--first, I get the plot idea.  Second, I write a narrative or synopsis of my story.  Third, I create my cast of characters.  Fourth, I create a few chapter headings and write a sentence or two as a guide to some of the pivotal scenes.  Last, but certainly not least, I begin to write.  Of course, nothing is set in stone.  An old saying that is sometimes true... "there's many a slip twix the cup and the lip."  Yes, sometimes I do wander from my original plot.  As the characters develop their personalities, I might change my mind as to the identity of the murderer.  The character originally chosen to be the bad guy, might turn out to be good.  You just never know what will happen as the word count grows.

Blog Number Sixteen

PROCRASTINATION IS LETHAL!

If time is both the enemy and the best friend of the writer, then procrastination is lethal.  If you're a woman, first, you tell yourself that when your toddlers start school, THEN you'll have time to write, but you get busy and keep putting it off.  Then you tell yourself when the kids go off to college, you'll have time to write.  But you have to take a second job to afford their tuition.

If that's the abbreviated story for a female writer, the male of the species have another set of obstacles. Writing wouldn't be "cool" if you tried to find time as a teenager.  Besides, anyone who tries to write at a young age, doesn't have "life experiences" to draw on.  In college there's pressure to keep your grades up, then a guy gets married, has kids, car payments and a hefty mortgage.  Their career consumes them and they simply don't have time to write.

Get the picture?

It's all about time.

Just as you budget your money, you must learn to budget your time.  Of course, this article is being written by a female born under the sign of Capricorn.  It's written in the stars for me to be well-organized and it comes easy to me.

My mantra is "do what I have to do so I can do what I want to do."

My advice is to go look in the mirror and be totally honest with yourself.  How great, how deep, how urgent is your drive to write and create.  If your answer is all three (great, deep and urgent), then FIND the time to write.

Don't do what I did...I looked in the mirror when I was sixty years old and realized that I had wasted many, many productive years.

Blog Number Fifteen

          Back when I was a member of East Tennessee Romance Writers (a chapter of RWA), I did a workshop on "Great Beginnings."  I bought several books (all fiction) in various genres--mystery, romance, romantic suspense and historical.  Some by famous, time-tested authors, some by newcomers.  We dissected the first three pages of each novel.  It was an education in what not to do.

The worst example opens the scene with a young woman walking up the steps of a typical San Francisco row house to knock on the door of her birth mother for whom she had been searching about ten years.  Instead of concentrating on the inner turmoil and nervousness of this young woman, the author launches into the history of San Francisco row houses.  Three pages later, she gets back to the young woman and her turmoil.

One historical we tore apart began with a love scene.  Okay, I can live with that.  However, the author stops right in the middle and describes the invention of the button and button loop.  Talk about a buzz-killer.

Several years ago, I read Peeling the Onion--avoiding the Too-Much Too-Soon Syndrome by Diana Whitney Hinz.  The basic tenet was don't release too much information too quickly.  Instead, create your hook, the exciting scene that draws readers into your story...THEN, get into the background little by little.

           Example.  "A flash of movement caused the attractive, divorced mother of two to slam on the breaks, sending the vehicle into an uncontrolled slide."