Why self publish? ...I'll tell you why I did.

I write books I and others consider entertainment: good entertainment, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-drawers adventure. Fantasy you can believe in. I self-published them.

I did it because I could. Print on demand makes it possible to publish my books without paying upfront fees, earn good royalties on sales, and have the books available to a worldwide audience. I own the copyright for every bit of fiction I've ever written.

Self-publishing has a bad reputation. I think it has a bad reputation in large part because traditional publishing houses want it to have a bad reputation. The implication--sometimes not so implied--is that if a book was any good at all, it would have an imprint from a publishing house with a Manhattan address. Self-publishing also has a bad reputation, in my opinion, because of the vulture-like speed and persistence with which places that print self-published books strike. Want to see what one of those strikes looks like? Call the 800 # or send an email to one of them and see how fast they contact you to sell you on their services. I clocked one at 10 minutes after I sent an email--and I sent the email at 11:00 PM!

There are advantages to having a publishing house publish your work. I won't kid you. If a publishing house called me tomorrow, I would give serious thought. I know that's not going to happen, and my plan involves having enough sales of self-published books to make a publisher take a serious look at my books. I'm sure there are publishing houses out there that won't touch a self-published book...but guess what. They don't need an official excuse to reject my work. I'm not going to worry about a traditional publisher rejecting my work because it's been self-published. Frankly, if they can't be confident that their house can't sell more books than I can as an individual, I sure as hell don't want to sell them my copyright.

The way I write a book...

   If you're looking for a step by step method, you're not going to find it here. I like to entertain myself with my writing. There is a lot written on this topic. If you want books on plotting, they're out there...along with books on just about every aspect of writing.

My method is to start with something in mind, but nothing concrete. At the moment, I'm working on chapter 62 of Sexton Sand. In this chapter, Andy, John, and Tom are carrying King Rajahd'een down a street in the capital of Crescens. They just finished a fight with a bunch of guys, but don't know if there are more people around who would kill them (cheerfully) and proceed with their day.

Fact is... I don't know what's going to happen next. I won't know until I finish the chapter. Given my style, I can tell you the chapter will probably be about 1,500 words long and that it will end with a mini cliffhanger. Then I'll move on to something else happening.

I think the next chapter will be about Benecala in the Fortress Balfour, looking at the thing the druids want so badly to retrieve.

Fact is... I don't know what will happen with that either.

I'll find out the way the reader (hopefully you, by the way) will find out: one word at a time.

Fountain pens--they're older than you think

I bought a new fountain pen today...with royalties, which made it feel even better to buy. (Allow me to insert this for my younger friends who might have never seen a fountain pen--they're old pens, that have to be filled with liquid ink by their owners. They have funky tips and have to be handled carefully.)

I love fountain pens for a variety of reasons, but I think the biggest reason is I have a love for old technology. I did a little research on the history of fountain pens, and was quite surprised. For example, the first documented use of what has become the modern fountain pen was 1,100 years ago in Egypt in the year 953 AD. The caliph of Egypt demanded a pen with an internal ink source that could be held upside down without leaking. He got it.

Fountain pens have changed over the years: the style of nib (tip) has seen its share of tinkering, as has the reservoir. Until I got this pen today, I always used the chicken-shit method of ink delivery--a disposable cartridge--but no more, baby! The pen I bought today came with a bottle of ink and a mechanical whatsis that brings the ink into the pen and stores it.

I bought a good pen--a treat to myself. Don't ask to borrow it. The booklet it came with says the nib will wear in a way that's beneficial to me, but use by others will effect it in a negative way. Besides, it's a pricey pen...a little under fifty bucks. A royal fifty bucks, if you will.

Put it on your reading list...War Remains, by Jeffrey Miller

I wouldn't promote my books if I didn't think they're good, and I certainly wouldn't promote someone else's book in the venue I'm trying to promote my books if it wasn't damn good. War Remains, by Jeffrey Miller is an outstanding read. You'll care deeply about the characters and their story will speak to you. If you know someone, or have relatives or ancestors who dealt with war and its inevitable fallout, War Remains will speak to you.

Here's the "blurb":

More than fifty years after his paternal grandfather Robert “Bobby” Washkowiak was reported missing in action, body never recovered during the Korean War, Michael Washkowiak makes a startling discovery of what really happened to his grandfather on one of the battlefields of that forgotten war.

Available in all electronic book formats at www.smashwords.com Soon it will be in paperback and hardcover from www.lulu.com

I wonder why they're called royalties

I've never received a lifetime award for anything and I hope I never do. I haven't lived a lifetime yet! ...How do you like that? I'm digressing before I start. That should be as impossible as receiving a lifetime achievement award while you're still alive.

I don't know why the money paid to artists for the sale of their work is called a royalty. If you know, I'd appreciate it if you would post it. I'm curious.

...But that's not really why I'm posting this tonight...

What I really want to say is that I'm delighted to report that my first ever royalty check is on its way to me. In addition to wanting to cheer out loud (which, by the way, I have done this evening), I feel like reflecting. It's long been a dream of mine to write and publish books. By publish I mean writing a book (in my case it's plural and getting plural-er by the week), getting those books for sale to the public, and receiving income from sales.

When I get that check next week from Lulu Enterprises, Inc., it will be the fruit of that dream. I really don't know how the term "royalty" came to be when it comes to paying the artist a portion of the sales price. I think it's an interesting word to use for those payments. I also think it's really cool that it is the work, not the writer, that is and will generate those royalties. If I get hit by a truck tomorrow and killed (which, btw, I aim to make sure doesn't happen), the royalties will keep coming. The books will generate income as long as people buy them.

If you're a writer and you're considering publishing, my advice to you is not to stop with eBooks. I've blogged about those before and I haven't changed my mind. It's a growing portion of publishing. For now, and for the foreseeable future, just so you know...the money is in print books. I have to sell 3 Kindle copies of Sexton to make as much as I do from one paperback copy of the same book.

I'm looking forward to getting that check. I hope it's the smallest royalty check I ever get. I'll know without remembering. Before I cash that check, I'm going to make a copy and frame it. I'll treat it like...wait for it...royalty.

Er...unintended consequences

This one caught me by surprise--a rare treat, by the way--and I laughed pretty hard at it.

I can look at stats for this blog and see how people found the page. I don't get to see who visited, but I can see from where they visited.
I started this blog by blogging about what I call the "Moby Dick Exercise", in which a man copied the book Moby Dick by hand. I copied (re-typing) several books while I was recovering from Wernickes.
So...when I saw that someone found this blog through a Google search for "Moby Dick Exercise", I was intrigued.
That's where the "Er..." comes in.

Guess what I found when I backtracked the "Moby Dick Exercise" search.
...Well... The searcher was concentrating on the second two words. Not the first two!

I think I'll give credit to brain damage

Brain damage, and credit? Brain damage is a serious matter, and I'm not making light of it. In my case--and in so many ways I am a very lucky man--brain damage has shaped my life in a good way. Do I have your attention yet?

I had grand mal seizures as a child. That was in the early 1970's, and something happened (probably as a result of those seizures) that made me use both sides of my brain for language. In 2005, I suffered an acute bout of Wernickes--which I've describe in detail in Green Goblin. In 2008, I had a neuropsyche exam--which is not a psychological test to see if a feller has his marbles or not, but a test of brain functions--that revealed I am what they call "lateralized"...meaning there is a large gap, a really large gap, between my verbal and procedural I.Q's. On the verbal side, I test high. The word descriptor was "very superior." On the procedural, or math side, I tested low. The word descriptor was "impaired."

I have loved to write since I was a little kid. I wrote for fun in junior high, I wrote for fun in high school. I didn't know I was any good at it until college...when I asked, quite honestly, for help with an English paper. Some awards for my newspaper columns, some awards from the college literary magazine, a mentorship with Clive Cussler, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Terry Brooks later, and I started to think I was a pretty decent writer.

I'm getting ready to speak to a Kiwanis club in Kalamazoo, MI later this month about my books. Until a little while ago, I didn't wasn't sure what to make the basis of my speech. I want them to buy my books. Not going to kid about that. But that doesn't make much of a speech.

Overcoming brain damage...using it to build a skill that all too few seem to possess a lot of? Well...that's a topic for a speech.

New chapter (finally!) in Sexton Sand...

Rorak shook his head and watched the Americans. “Just what do they think they're doing this time?” He saw them emerge from the kiosk carrying a man, an unconscious man judging by the way his buttocks nearly dragged on the ground while Tom and Andy carried his shoulders and John held the feet at his waist. He was still chuckling when he turned his attention away from them and looked back the way they had come. Given the ruckus from that direction, men were on the way. A lot of men. Men unamused at the sound of the explosion Andy made.


Feels good to write new material again!

Volume of volumes of Sexton

By "volume" I mean noise, and by noise, I mean throwing a lot out there in hopes of receiving return.

In a word: Huh?

I read a piece written by a guy who's name I can't remember. In it he tries to explain that it is possible to make a living writing and selling eBooks. His claim is that he makes $100,000+ selling his electronic books. Like a lot of self-help gurus, reading his stuff doesn't really spell out how he does it.

I figured out his key to success, and I'm going to emulate it. It's simple. He publishes a lot, really a lot, of stuff. Royalties grow over time, word spreads over time. Have you ever noticed that it takes years to build a good reputation? (It's the opposite of a bad reputation, especially in that bad things spread fast while good things inch along.)

So... since July, I have published 3 books in the Sexton Chronicles series, 1 true-life story of a difficult illness I overcame, and 1 anthology of short stories. I've published them as Kindle books, and Nook books, and paperback books, and hardcover books...as epub files, and mobi files, and pdf files. Four months isn't long, but I'm not going anywhere soon.

I'm not running out of material either. Or time. 

Next up... Sexton Sand. No kidding... I promise

Depending on how you count, I now have 5 or 6 published books!

The quibbling is about Green Goblin/Bouffont Vert. One is in English, and one is in French. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me how anyone counts them.
I'm excited about my latest publication, a little book entitled Just for Fun: A Little Sexton, and Some Other Stuff. I published it kind of as a lark. I have a couple of short stories that won awards in college that have been dormant for far too long, and a partial Sexton manuscript that might be of interest to fans (if, Lord willing, I have some of those someday--you know, fantasy-loving-trivia-bugs-of-the-sort-that-think-Elvish-is-a-real-language-and-not-a-Las-Vegas-showperson-impersonator.)
What I'm really excited about in the book is my journal from Peru. I was there for 9 weeks in 1987 and it's a good story even if it is nonfiction. The cover could be a photo of the place where I almost drowned saving a guy from drowning in the Urabamba River. Peru is a lot more stable now than it was then, but it has always been a beautiful country.
You can take a look at the book if you want (and buy it!). I have a preview set up at the bottom of the page.

Picking it up again...

It's always a slightly different experience. I'm writing new stuff again, this time in Sexton Sand, book IV in the Sexton Chronicles.

I'm wondering, as I always do, what comes next. In the chapter I finished a couple of months ago, Tom, John, and Andy had knocked King Rajahd'een of Crescens senseless in an alley in the capitol city of Crescens. Have you wondered if Andy really has any skills with magic? I think I've made it ambiguous, but we see for sure in this book.

Hell no, I'm not going to tell you. I want you to buy the book and see for yourself.

I haven't been idle since writing chapter 60 back in July. I've published the first three books in paperback and hardcover, epub, kindle, and pdf. Each publishing experience brings its own opportunities to learn new things and I've enjoyed learning them. Now I know how and where to get ISBN's, and how to design covers, and write press releases... I can even make my signature look like an autograph from someone who knows how to write autographs.

But now it's time to get back to fun.

   ...Time to get back to Sexton

No more visits from France? C'mon! I like you guys!

I noticed I haven't had any visitors from France to this site since that post I placed in French. Interesting. Perhaps I should apologize for my use of the language...and I can assure you that any errors made were a combination of my errors and those of the computer translation program I used.

Reminds me of a story...

I spent 9 weeks in Peru when I was in college. One day, I ran into 4 Frenchmen on the Inca trail. We spoke French back and forth as we walked. It was an amicable conversation.

Eventually one of them looked at me and asked if I was French-Canadian. Apparently they couldn't quite place my accent. I thought I was speaking Parisean French, but evidence pointed to the contrary to their well-trained ears.

When I told them I was not only not French Canadian, I was in fact an American... They refused to speak French anymore. Not so much as a "wee". I knew why. They were willing to tolerate a Canadian accent, but couldn't stand the thought of an American butchering their language.

It would have been easy to speak only English to them. I didn't do that, of course. I was mildly offended. Instead...and feel free to grin... I continued to speak French (in a limited fashion)...but I did so with an American Southern accent.

Bone jooooure mon-eee-sewer...! I could see a rash start to form on their necks, and beads of irritated sweat pop out on their foreheads.

Je suis trez drole, n'est pas? Non? Well...sorry about that. Please. I love ya. Have a great day!

Hope and care for sufferers of wernickes and korsakoffs, and a salute for those who serve them

On behalf of the patients who might not be able to express their appreciation to the staff, and on speaking as a man who had extraordinary care when I was afflicted, I say thank you. I'm attaching a link to Dukeries Health Care, in the United Kingdom. The site is full of information about the condition/conditions as well as photos of what looks to be a pleasant place. These people understand the illness. Although it is a rare illness, it is a serious one. Some might want to blame the sufferers of wernickes and korsakoffs for their condition, but I think that's the easy way out. Alcoholism is a disease. Trust me... I understand the temptation to place blame for it. God knows I struggle with self blame more than I suffered from quitting drinking... 

Take a moment, if you would be so kind, to learn a little bit about wernickes and korsakoffs. Maybe you can help prevent a friend from suffering from it, or if you know someone suffering from it, perhaps you can understand what's going on.

http://dukerieshealthcare.co.uk/ChampionCrescent.aspx

They were also kind enough to place a link to "Green Goblin" (my story of my fight with wernickes) on their site. I hope it can help someone, even if it's only in a small way.

Some things prove whether a person is an optimist or a pessimist

Royalty watching... In my case it has nothing to do with whether the prince is going to marry what's-her-name (she's hot, but what IS her name?) in England.

In my case Royalty watching is becoming an unhealthy thing. I want to know if any of my Kindle books, eBooks, paperback, or hardcover books have sold. It's a matter of checking websites and looking at reports.

I fall on the side of optimism every time. I'm not disappointed when the sales figures haven't changed. I look at them and enjoy the little numbers with the hope (knowledge... I'll call it faith) that I'm looking at the small figures of a career in its infancy. I believe in my books. They're good books and with time they'll grow legs and start bringing home the bacon to the guy who's working on the next book.

I think a pessimist in a similar situation would go nuts, and maybe even give up.

Not me. I'm going to do what I do, and that is write. I'm not going to sit idly by and wait for sales--there is a fair amount of marketing that has to happen--but long experience with reports and numbers tells me that staring at reports (though I do cheer when someone buys a book) won't do anything.

En Francais...Bouffon Vert (Green Goblin)

Ce poste est pour mes amis, connus et inconnus, qui parlent le français. Dans le temps qui s'est écoulé depuis que j'ai écrit et publié en anglais Green Goblin, j'ai eu plus de visites sur ce blog de la France que des États-Unis. En conséquence, j'ai publié le Bouffon Vert en français. Si vous, mon ami, essayons d'en savoir plus sur Wernickes - si vous êtes un ami d'un malade, ou qui sont liés à un malade, je vous souhaite à tous le meilleur. Au cas où vous vous poseriez la question, je ne parle que suffisamment le français pour être en mesure de vérifier à nouveau le programme que j'ai utilisé pour traduire mon petit livre. 
  Si vous souhaitez me contacter, s'il vous plaît le faire par un commentaire sur cette entrée de blog. Je ferai de mon mieux pour répondre à toutes vos questions (s'il vous plaît, si vous le pouvez, postez votre commentaire en anglais ... et si vous ne pouvez pas, s'il vous plaît pardonnez les erreurs de traduction que je pourrais faire quand je réponds.)

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/bouffon-vert/13235017

I'm excited about a couple of things...

I'll mark this first one in my calendar because it makes me happy for reasons I don't fully understand: Someone, somewhere in the United Kingdom bought Green Goblin for their Kindle. The Sexton books have been up on Amazon UK for a couple of months with no sales, and I was beginning to wonder if any of my stuff would sell on Amazon there. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Green Goblin was my first sale in the UK. They're waaaay ahead of the US in terms of recognizing and treating Wernicke-Korsakoff disease.

I'm also excited, for different reasons, about Smashwords.com. Smashwords publishes eBooks in all formats. I uploaded all three (to date) Sexton Chronicles books as well as Green Goblin, and Smashwords converted them to epub, kindle, Sony Reader, Palm Reader, PDF, RTF, and other formats I don't remember at the moment. You can buy/download books from there and read samples there. 

The other thing Smashwords did for me is made the Sexton books easy to find with a simple Google search. The books appear with all kinds of URLs that lead to free samples, and ultimately to the books. Very, very cool.

If you have an electronic reader, take some time to check out www.smashwords.com And it won't hurt my feelings any if you buy one, or two, or four of mine while you're there!

I wrote a little book...a true story disguised as fiction

The name of the little book is Green Goblin. It's the story of a guy who got Wernickes Encephalopathy, a destructive disease of the brain brought about by abuse of alcohol. The odds of recovery and living a normal life are slim, even with great care provided by great people.

Some make it.

I made it. Green Goblin is my story. It's a short book of 64 pages. I hope to give hope through the book, not only to those suffering from Wernickes (the sufferers include family members and caregivers of those afflicted), but those going through other serious illnesses as well.

Here's a link to the book.

Green Goblin

My author page on Amazon.com and other places you can buy my books

Amazon does a nice job with its author pages. My books and kindle books are in one place, and the "look inside" feature is enabled for the print books. Look Inside is a nice feature because it lets the potential buyer see the first few pages before they decide to purchase.

Click to see my author page on Amazon

If you click on the books on the right side of this page you can preview them, and if you choose to buy them from there you can link to the books at Lulu.com. Lulu is the only place to offer the books in hardcover.

Barnes and Noble offers Sexton, Sexton Spice, and Storm Clouds Over Sexton as eBooks. Search for David J. Steele at www.barnesandnoble.com

Have a great day! I plan to do the same.

New writing exercise

Twitter. Tweet. It's fun to tweet, and, I suppose, be a twit...

Twitter limits "tweets"--little text entries one can send to others who chose to follow him or her--to 140 characters. Not 140 words. One hundred and forty characters. That's not a lot, in case you're wondering. Especially when Twitter considers a space to be a character.

There are probably several ways to use the limit as a writing exercise. I just started yesterday, playing around.

My self-imposed mission is to make each of my tweets exactly 140 characters. I want to convey the idea I'm trying to convey (vague and weak though it might be) in 140 characters. In this little game I'm playing, I have a couple of rules:

• No shorthand, as in "texts" via cellphone
• Punctuation counts and must be used
• Must convey an idea
• Can't use multiple tweets to gain extra characters

There's no penalty if I don't make it, other than I call myself names at the computer...which means I won't try a similar exercise on YouTube. I'm doing this as an exercise, not because I have a lot of fluff in my writing--I don't. In fact, it's tighter than a rubber band on brick. I'm doing this to make sure I keep it as tight as a rubber band on a brick.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, you probably already know how. Just follow Misticuf. That's me.

See, stew, sit, and...there it is.

I was driving home this morning as the sun came up. The sky was orange at the horizon and changed miraculously to a band of deep blue, lightening to a pale blue glow that would minutes later, become azure with the full light of day. Clouds were vertical jags with edges growing dull with time.

I didn't plan to write about the sky, here or in any of the Sexton books. I probably will, but by then I won't remember that sunrise in particular. It was part of what I'll call my "see".

It will go into the sludge of stuff in my brain, along with conversations and observations, jokes, hopes, and pieces of cranial lint that's already there. When it comes up in the course of whatever portion of whichever book, I won't remember it.

That's how the writing process, the external part of it anyway, works for me. It doesn't matter if it's a character description, a place, a piece of dialog, or a joke. I don't mean to imply that writing isn't work for me. It is.

The best stuff that comes out is the stuff I don't think I had to think about, but stuff I did think about when I didn't think I was thinking.

If you understand the previous sentence...you're probably a writer or some other kind of artist.

Let's talk about Barnes & Noble's Nook

I'm aware that these posts appear on my author's page at amazon.com...and I get a little kick out of that fact. I like Amazon, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to disrespect them or what they do. Let's call posts like this a little expirament. I'm an Amazon Associate. That doesn't mean much. It means that if you buy a book from Amazon through this website, I'll get a little money without it costing you a thing.

So far, I'm happy to report, Amazon owes me less than a buck. That's after 3 months. They'll pay me when they owe me a hundred bucks. I'm all a-twitter.

At the rate they're paying me, I can afford to be honest. I think Barnes & Noble's Nook (ebook reader) is a much better device than the Kindle. There's nothing wrong with the Kindle. It's light, it's easy to read, and it's fast.

I just like the Nook better. The Nook (which you can pick up and feel before you buy if you go to Barnes & Noble), feels like a book in my hands. It has a color touch screen. You can see the covers of the book you're reading. The most basic model Nook costs 10 bucks more than the most basic model Kindle, but if you buy a Nook from a Barnes & Noble store, the money you save on shipping and handling vs. Kindle makes up the difference. You can also take your Nook to a Barnes & Noble store and browse books on it before you decide to buy.

I'm going to buy one of those Nook things pretty soon.

*A little caveat... Until yesterday, I was going to buy a Kindle instead of a Nook. The reason was both selfish and simple: my books were available as Kindle books, but not as Nook books. As of yesterday, that changed.

Of anticipation...and remembering what appears where

The anticipation I feel has to do with the fact that my copy of Storm Clouds Over Sexton, the third book in the Sexton Chronicles is on a truck in Maumee, Ohio right now. I'm sure it's sitting in a box, bubble wrapped, on top of a copy of Sexton Spice bubble wrapped in its own right, waiting for a driver to show up, so it can be delivered to me. I'm feeling anticipation, not due to anxiety--because this time I took my time reviewing it online--but due to excitement.

There's nothing quite like opening a box and seeing my book inside. The book that began as a blank screen on an old computer running Windows 98 in the year 2010. I'll be able to flip through the pages, and cast a glance at the ream-and-a-half of paper with the coffee stains, red ink stains, and...truth be told...a few blots from a fountain pen desperately in need of proper cleaning. I'll grin because when I stared at that blank word processor screen I had no road map, no outline...nothing but a pile of characters and a strong desire to see Andy rescued before the whole situation with Crescens escalates to a dark war.

As far as what appears where...you might remember my previous blog post. Someone (and by that I mean me) kind of, sort of, wasn't thinking. You see, my friend, these posts also appear on my author page on Amazon!

As the dog Astro used to say on that old cartoon, The Jetsons, "Ruh-roh, Relroy!"

Lulu and Createspace

When I was looking to self-publish my manuscripts, I looked at both Createspace (which is Amazon's) and Lulu. I went with Lulu, and I'll try to explain why in simple, but nonjudgmental terms. I think I can do it one sentence:

Amazon charges, and Lulu doesn't.

Createspace advertises early on in one of the screens that it doesn't charge up front fees. That is true. One needs to read carefully... The fee isn't up front. It's there, but it's not an up front fee. You need to look at the side-by-side comparison, and you do that by clicking on a box on the right side of the screen. You'll see there are many publishing/marketing packages offered and each one contains a setup fee. It's not an upfront fee...they take it out of the first of the profits/royalties paid. That fee starts at $299.

Lulu attaches a markup to each book ordered, but there is no setup fee. (I expect no less from any publisher. It's how they can afford to stay in business and why they're in business in the first place.) With Lulu, the writer's royalties/commissions are just that: the writer's. I don't know if Createspace puts a markup on the books. Frankly, I stopped looking once I realized the first three hundred bucks was going to go to pay for something the other guys weren't going to charge me at all. I suspect there is a retail markup on Createspace books, but can't say for sure.

I didn't want to pay $299 for the privilege of publishing my manuscripts. I preferred to pay nothing at all to self-publish my books...and that's what I paid.

Glad I looked...and found I was right

I need to do press releases to the local media about my books. People won't buy what they don't know about.

I haven't done the press releases yet, even though I know they'll drive sales. The local media in these parts are very friendly and are looking for stories like: Local Dude Wrote A BOOK! I'm a local dude, and I've written three books.

I've been holding off on the press releases not because I don't know how to write them or what to include, but because few people have heard of Lulu, and might not be as willing to shop online from a source they don't know as they might be to shop from a site they're familiar with.

I did a little digging on the Lulu website and checked out their marketing guides. They want authors to purchase their marketing services, and I'm not going to do that. I know how to write press releases and follow up with phone calls to writers and editors.

I'm happy to report that the one free bit of advice lulu offers is the one I already knew. My thought was to wait until Amazon picks up the listing of at least Sexton, and maybe Sexton Spice before I launch my personal media blitz.

Lulu's marketing advice: "Wait for your books to be listed with Amazon or Barnes & Noble before purchasing a media kit."

That's my plan.

Serial style, novel format: Sexton Sand

I'm re-typing the first draft (half done) of Sexton Sand, Sexton Chronicles Vol. 4.

I try to keep my chapters to about 1,500 words--a couple of pages in length. Fast chapters, fast page-turning and hopefully seat-of-the-pants stuff. I hope it keeps you reading until you're afraid you'll hate yourself in the morning. That's the way I like my fiction.

But even I had to shake my head at myself, in a sort of blushing, grinning, impish way.

I have four chapters in a row in Sexton Sand describing a battle in a canyon. Each of those four chapters ends in a cliff-hanging sentence. Heck, I wrote them, and I'm turning the page and cussing at myself because there's no good place to stop.

I hope you're not looking for an apology for that. There isn't one coming.

Excerpt from Sexton Sand (Sexton Chronicles, Vol. 4)

    "That's the one." Tom walked to the other side of his horse and took something from the saddle on that side. He held it up for John to see. "Gunpowder." It was a powder horn. "We're going to climb that ridge, go along for a while...sing to them from a bunch of different spots...and have them chase little grenades until we're sure we can pass by safely."

   John couldn't help it. The laugh burst through his clenched teeth like a belch. "That's your plan? Get a hundred guys who would love to kill us just for breathing their air to chase us for bad singing while we toss little grenades at them?"

   Tom's face as without expression, but clear in the moonlight. "Yes. That's the plan. Got a problem with that?"   
   "Only one."

   "What's that?"

   "I've heard you sing. It's not exactly your crowning glory."

   The grin reappeared. "That's why I'll do the easy part."

   "There's an easy part?"

   Tom bent and started filling the bottles with gunpowder. "Yeah. I'll only sing the lion sleeps tonight. You handle the verses, and the awimboweys."

   He wanted to object, but it was pointless. If he refused, Tom would just do it without him. He squatted and held the bottles for Tom to fill. This is nuts, he thought, but it just might work.

I love libraries...but...

Frankly, I'm not going to make any money from my books if they're in a library collection.

I got an invitation through Lulu, to put copies of my book in a library book show that will be attended by librarians from all over the state of Michigan who are responsible for buying books for their library. I'm a new author, and I love the idea that people will be able to check my book out from the library. It's an ego boost.

...but it's not a wallet boost. Let's do some math (and I readily admit I'm not good at math). If a library buys a copy of my book, and they put the book on the shelf...and let's stretch here, an act of whimsy. Let's say someone checks the book out and really likes it. Speed reads through it and takes it back in a week. Someone else checks it out right away. A waiting list forms. By the end of the third month, let's say 100 people have read the book. Let's say a book club forms, an audience gathers, and someone with a huge theater presence reads the book aloud to 1,000 people. This is fun!

Guess how many royalties I will have made from all those people reading my book, or having it read to them.

One. One copy of the book to the library...one royalty paid to yours truly.

Um... I think I'll take a pass at this time. I'm not going to put my book in the library show. Later, perhaps, when I can afford to be more generous. When was the last time you checked a book out of a library and liked it so much you went and bought your own copy?

Writing again. Sexton Sand, the 4th book in the series

It feels good to be pounding away on the keyboard again. I'm re-typing what I have of the manuscript so I can be in the swing when I get to the fresh stuff in a day or two. I'm about 40% through the first draft.

Now that I have published copies, I'm going to accelerate the timetable. With each of the first three books, I wrote the first draft and let it sit for 9 months to a year before touching it again. I was doing that for a couple of reasons, one valid, one not. The valid reason was that I wanted to get started on the next book; the invalid was that I wasn't sure how to proceed after that.

With Sexton Sand, I'm going to write the first draft and move directly to the cleanup, and then the publish phase. Letting the manuscript sit didn't give me distance...at least not in a good way. Besides, I can't sell copies if the book is nothing more than a stack of papers on the bookshelf behind my desk.

Storm Clouds is a Kindle book, and soon the others will be...

Amazon-ified! 

I see from my reports that Storm Clouds Over Sexton, is in the catalog at amazon.com as a Kindle book. And, I'm glad to report that Amazon has increased the royalty they pay to a percentage in line with what other producers of electronic books pay.

I don't have a date yet for when the softcover version of Sexton will be for sale at amazon.com but there's no need to wait. You can buy all three by clicking on the previews on the right side of  this blog, or by going to www.lulu.com and searching for my name.

I have the cover now for Sexton Sand, the fourth book in the series, and you can see the cover on the right-hand side of this blog.

I'm done publishing for a few weeks. All I have done is out there, ready to order or download. I've had fun with it...but now it's time to get back to what I like best...writing more about Tom, John, Andy, Quarick, Cedric, Rolof, Aemilia...and others.

The box arrived, and I need to make...

...a couple of changes. There was a problem with the page numbering, and I like having headers on the page...you know, with the author's name on one page and the title of the book on the opposite page. A revision is in order.
Lulu is very kind about revisions, by the way. As long as I make changes before the book is distributed to Amazon and the bookstore/library catalogs (6-8 weeks after publication on Lulu), all I have to do is order another proof copy and the changes won't cost me anything.
It looks like I'll have an extra copy of Sexton Spice in trade paperback and in hardcover to give away as Christmas presents.

My copy of Sexton Spice is in Perrysburg, OH

 As I have been the last three times FedEx tracking allowed me to follow my books from order, to first stop, to second stop, to third stop (usually Perrysburg, OH), I am nervous, excited, and anxious.

I'm always nervous because, well, it's important to me. On one hand, it's a fool's nervousness. The book either looks as good as I hope or it doesn't. It's printed, and bound. I either got it right when I clicked the "publish" button or I didn't. Still. I made the thing and I haven't seen it yet.

I already know I'll be less than thrilled with the picture on the back. I won't be disgusted by it. I already know what I look like. (That was a little joke. Little.) One of these days I'll get one of those authorlike photos, perhaps. Maybe I'll put a picture of me from college theater...MacBeth. Nah. That one scares me. I look like I just killed 12 people and it wasn't enough.

Holding my books in my hand is a dream long unrealized, and now it's here. Truth is, I really don't care about the photo. I care that people buy and read the books, and mostly that they enjoy the books. The picture? Just little old me in front of a tree with a puff of wind making my hair stand up straight. No resemblance to Tom Benton, Viper. No resemblance whatsoever...beyond the fact that we're the same height and build. Well, okay, maybe just a teensy-weensy bit of character might overlap.

Dedicated book: Storm Clouds Over Sexton

I read the dedications authors put in their books, and like the other two or three people that read author's dedications, I rarely know who the author is talking about. So I thought I'd tell you this story.

The first part of the dedication is easy and every bit as sincere as the second part of the dedication. I dedicated the book to my mom and dad. They were, and are, very supportive of my writing.

The second part of the dedication is to a young man who died recently by the name of Adrian Gerber. I never met Adrian, but I heard about him from people who met him. His bravery inspired me. He died of his illness. I'd like to think his bravery inspired me just because it was bravery, but that's not entirely the case. I suffered an illness that could have killed me and it didn't. Adrian Gerber wasn't spared, but from what I heard he kept his spirit clean and positive.

Dedicating a book, by the way, is pretty easy. You just type what you want to say, and that's the end of it. Unless you screw up, like I did. What I did was get Adrian's last name wrong. I was one letter off when I clicked "accept" and turned Storm Clouds Over Sexton into a book. I spelled his last name as g-A-r-b-e-r. I didn't know how to fix it.

I almost let it go. I almost let my lazy self talk my better self into letting young Mister Gerber be Adrian Garber. Fixing it after the book had already been purchased and was being printed by the good people at Lulu didn't seem like a good idea. After all, wasn't dedicating the book enough? Wouldn't anyone understand a simple typo?

I couldn't let it go. It took me about 5 hours--no kidding--5 hours to study the tutorials, download the file, fix the file, upload the file, download the file, and upload it again. All because I put an "A" where there should have been an "E".

I fixed the error around one o'clock this morning. How could I not? The young man in question didn't give up. Besides, I felt an obligation (and I'll go farther...I felt God wanted me to get it right. I did....I really did.)

I'm glad I did. Mom, Dad...Adrian...this book's for you.

It always feels good when you realize you're worried about the wrong thing.

When I published Sexton, I got the first copy off the press. When I got it in my hands, I wrote "Author's copy. Copy #1."
Since then, I've published Sexton Spice, and Storm Clouds Over Sexton. There was a delay--called waiting for payday--between publishing them, and me placing an order for my copy.
In both cases, someone ordered Sexton Spice. And someone else ordered Storm Clouds Over Sexton. My first reaction was a dazed wonder--how could I have let this happen? How could I, the author, not have copy 1?
I was being...let's substitute "Silly" for the word I want to use. The word I want to use is a shortened version of "stupid excrement."
Here's the way I should have looked at it, and the way I look at it now:

1. Someone other than me is buying the books!
2. I'm the author. Why do I need copy 1, when I have the manuscript?
3. (This is the dark side 1, and the most convincing to me of all) ...What if I was the only one who ordered the book? Yikes!

To my dear friends who bought Sexton Spice, and Storm Clouds Over Sexton before I bought my copies... Thank you! Make sure I autograph and authenticate your copies the next time I see you.

NOTE: AS OF THIS WRITING, I STILL HAVEN'T ORDERED MY COPY OF STORM CLOUDS OVER SEXTON. Buy yours today, and you can beat me!

Sexton Spice and Storm Clouds Over Sexton--rare editions

...Who am I fooling? They're all rare at the moment...they only recently went on sale!
But... I have two errors to fix, and that means if you order the books now you'll get editions that will only get rarer as time goes by. The changes are minor, but as long as I can still fix them, I will.
Here are the changes:

Sexton Spice only has page numbers up to page 135. I'll fix it so all the pages are numbered.
Storm Clouds Over Sexton is dedicated to my parents and to a young man I never had the opportunity to meet, but who fought valiantly against the disease that took him. His name was Adrian Gerber, but I listed it as Adrian Garber by mistake. I'm going to fix that error before I send copies to his parents (who I have also never met.)

You can still order the books. Follow the links to the right.

The first three Sexton books are in print, and now I can...

...write again.

Don't get me wrong. I've had a lot of fun working with Lulu Enterprises to get Sexton, Sexton Spice, and Storm Clouds Over Sexton in print. Trust me when I say I'm looking forward to the day I'll have DSL rather than dialup internet, and a computer running something newer than Windows 98 (yes, it's true... I'm the guy running Windows 98)...but it's still been fun.

What I want to do now, and can, and frankly...must do...is write. I love to write!

I'm about halfway through the first draft of the fourth book in the Sexton Chronicles: Sexton Sand. I don't have a timeline for completion, but if all goes well, my hope is to have it published by St. Patrick's Day.

You know what I call a hope I put in writing? ...A goal.

Opening sentence of Sexton (Sexton Chronicles, vol. 1)

"He stared at the bottom of the ravine and waited to shoot his friends."

  It's what Tom is doing when the book, the series, opens. I knew it was a harsh way to open a book, and given some of the feedback I've received, I wasn't wrong. I'm not going to apologize for it and wouldn't change it if I could. (Come to think of it, I could.)

  The sentence is thematic to the book. Although he doesn't know it at the time, eventually Tom will have to decide whether to kill his friends and betray the trust his adopted kingdom has placed in him, or if friendship is more valuable as a self definition device than loyalty to country.

  Thank God I've never had to make that kind of choice, and I hope I never do.

  It's the opening line to a series about three Americans in a different world... You know that, and I'm pretty sure you already know what Tom decides. Or do you just think you know?

Storm Clouds Over Sexton is available!

It was a busy day today, and a good one. I finalized Storm Clouds Over Sexton, and it's now for sale at www.lulu.com as softcover, hardcover, and file download. Lulu prices are based in large part on the number of pages, and at 513 pages, this book is considerably larger than the first in the series, and a bit larger than the 2nd in the series. That's probably the only thing I have in common with the writer of the Harry Potter series.

In other good news, I extend my thanks to the people at Amazon, who are now giving writers of Kindle books 70% royalty on the price of the kindle books...a more than 100% increase over yesterday, and in line now with what other publishers of electronic books pay writers.

I'll put the preview of Storm Clouds Over Sexton on the right side of this blog...in the morning. I mean the actual morning, not the clock morning...when the sun and I rise.

I hope to do to others what I did to myself

I just finished editing Storm Clouds Over Sexton, the fourth book in the series. I wanted to stop an hour ago, but I couldn't.

It's been a year since I finished the manuscript, and (here's the part I promised in the title of this post) I forgot some of the ending. I wanted to stop editing and go to bed, but I couldn't. I wanted to see how it played out. I like it. I like it a lot. Further and unabashedly I say I hope you like it too. I also hope you can't stop once you get to the last 100 pages or so.

I don't think it'll give away to much, but if you think so...then don't read the end of this post. You see, I thought I'd share the last line of Storm Clouds Over Sexton with you here before anywhere else.

Ready?

Here it is:

"He jabbed his finger in Tom's direction, "Now that, my friend, sounds like fun!"

BMD--they make good stories

BMD: An acronym of my own creation that stands for "Brief Moment of Duh."

   It doesn't take much to suffer a BMD, and it doesn't take much for a BMD to become a major inconvenience. They're usually good for a laugh, and today's BMD is no exception.

  I work in a locked room--locked for the protection of those within. When I work in the morning, there's another person in there working with me. We each have a set of keys to the room, but they're not our keys. We get them when we punch in. My co-worker left the room for a moment and I continued working. A few minutes later, he call me from the hall and said he left his keys in the room.

  I left the room in a hurry... I didn't want to leave the poor guy in the hallway. I opened the door and he thanked me.

   "I can't believe I left my keys in there," he said.

   "It's okay. Perfectly understandable." I knew something he didn't know, but I was reluctant to spill it. I had committed my own Brief Moment of Duh.

   "Are you going to open the door?"

   I shook my head. "I would," I said by way of explanation, "but I left my keys in there when I came out to get you..."

   I'm glad I'm the one who writes the books!

My first hardcover, and it's made beautifully

I admit I was too excited to sleep well last night. I remember now what it was like to lie in bed Christmas eve, barely able to contain the excitement of unwrapping special stuff in the morning.

  It's a good thing FedEx allows tracking of packages. I watched it get closer and closer, until I grabbed the box from between the door and the storm door.

  It's pricey. At just under $40, I recommend the equally well-made softcover version of the hardcover book. But...the printing, binding, paper, and construction of components on this book is top notch. That's coming from a guy who earned his bookbinding merit badge (back when there was such a badge) when he was 13, and has continued to examine every book he ever bought with an eye on how it was made.

  ...Of course, that the book has my name in gold print on the spine under the wrap-around cover does bias me toward the book. You know, just a little.

"You did not! Show me your I.D.!"

Sometimes it's helpful to be the "mouth" in "word of mouth." I took my book with me to a couple of places in town. One of those places was the gas station near my house. I stop there several times a week, and the clerks know me by face. It's the bane and the benefit of living in a small town.

I held out my book and said, "See? I wrote a book."

She asked if she could look at it and I handed it to her. She flipped through several pages and eyeballed the description on the back with a smile on her face. "This sound good!" Her eyes hardened, though still twinkling, as she looked at me over the top of her glasses. "You wrote this? Really?"

I assured her I did.

She looked it over, trying to find my picture. Mental note made: put a photo on future books. Her eyes locked on mine and she asked again with different emphasis: "You wrote this?"

"Yes."

Pause. "Show me your I.D."

She was impressed...as soon as she matched the name on my driver's license with the name on the book. I'm starting to like this author thing...

Library...soon, a book signing event

The public library in Vassar is the best small town library I've ever seen, and I've visited several. In my years as a professional in the Boy Scouts, I made a point of visiting libraries in towns I served.

   I just got back from a conversation with our librarian. The other day I dropped off  a copy of the cover of my first book (commercial: Sexton, by David J. Steele, available at lulu.com) along with the ISBN for Sexton, and Sexton Spice.

   He was pleased to hear I'm going to donate copies of the hardcover editions, but what he really wants is for me to do a book signing there. We agreed to hold off until late October, and that it's best I have some inventory on hand. I explained that it would take more sales before I have enough money to front inventory, but I think we can work something out about that. He seemed to think he can get my books cheaper than I can because he's ordering for a library. He's right about that, by the way.

  I'm excited about that.

  The other thing I feel good about is that he offered to call his contact at the Saginaw News, the feature editor, and tell her about my book. He offered to help generate as much publicity as possible, and I'm excited about that as well. Two years ago another local author (who wrote a history of Vassar) did a book signing event there. I was going to attend...and couldn't find anyplace to park. People were lined up out the door! If my books can generate half of that, I'll do a jig all the way home--which in my case, fortunately, is less than a hundred yards.

Get a 10% discount on my books until 9/30/2010

I just got an email from Lulu Enterprises, the publisher of record for my two books in print: Sexton (book 1), and Sexton Spice (book 2.)

If you order prior to 11:59 PM on September 30, you get 10% off the cover price up to $10.00 in discount.

Follow the link, and place your order. You'll be asked to register (sign up) free.

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Misticuf

In the space that calls for coupon code, enter: AUTUMN

Here is the fancy wording from Lulu with those little caveats and what if's:

"* Disclaimer: Enter coupon code "AUTUMN" during checkout and save 10% off the purchase price. Discount cannot be used to pay for, nor shall be applied to, applicable taxes or shipping and handling charges. Maximum amount that may be applied to discount is $10.00 per account. Promotional codes cannot be applied to any previous orders. no exchanges or substitutions allowed. Only one valid promotional code may be used per order. Offer expires September 30, 2010 at 11:59 PM EDT. Lulu.com reserves the right to change or revoke this offer at any time. Void where prohibited.

On writing and reading...and royalties and ego

I love to write almost as much as I love to have people read what I write. It's a good combination and drives me pretty hard. Now that I'm trying to make enough money writing to be able to commit myself to it full time, I'm also thinking about royalties.
  Here's where ego comes in, and I'm sure I'm not the first author to notice this one: there's an inverse relationship between the amount of bucks (based on format) a reader shells out to the amount of the royalty. For example: I make less than a dollar if someone buys a hardcover copy of Sexton or Sexton Spice. But...(and I'm sure I'm not alone on this one), my ego loves that someone was interested enough to shell out the money for a hardcover. The fact is, hardcovers are more expensive to produce and therefore there isn't as much money left over to pay the writer.
  I'm a bit of a fool when it comes to a struggle between ego and money. I can afford to be...because I'm not going hungry or broke. Therefore, I'm sure I'll beam and feel a warm glow when someone buys a hardcover copy of one of my books.
  Ahh...who am I fooling? At this point in my career (fledgling stage), I'm damn glad when anyone spends a dime on anything I write!

Started Sexton Chronicles group on Facebook today

I thought it would be fun to have a Sexton Chronicles group on Facebook, and anyone with a Facebook account who reads this is welcome to join (Hello, individuals in China who read this blog, and welcome!)
  My plan is to have different stuff there than is here. What that stuff is...
   ... I don't know.
We'll see how it plays out. Anyone can participate... Toss some ideas around, speculate about future developments in the books, you know...almost whatever.

This is what it feels like to sell a book? I love it!

Somebody made my day today, which is no mean feat because I almost always have good days.
  I'll confess I look at my sales reports (Kindle, and Lulu so far) on an almost obsessive basis.  I own stock and mutual funds and have never watched them this closely.
  As an optimist, I'll tell you I'm looking for good news and don't bat an eye at days when nothing sold. I just don't. It's not a morality thing, or a forced positive attitude... I just get a rush out of good news and figure no news or bad news is fleeting.
  This afternoon I looked at my Lulu sales report and saw that, at that point in time, no one had purchased Sexton, or Sexton Spice. But...when I looked again later, someone had! I think I know who, but I can't be sure. I only get numbers. The purchaser will get a thank-you email from me, but it's an auto-send thing.
  I know it wasn't my wife, my mother, or my father. But I can tell you this: I feels great. It's a warm feeling, knowing that I gave my best shot at writing an entertaining, hopefully seat-of-the-pants fantasy novel. Lulu will print and mail a copy just for them...and after that, it's up to the reader.
  I say this with both humility and hope: I really want them to enjoy reading it!
  I say this as a writer who wants his books, his series, to grow wings and fly: PLEASE, EVERYBODY, BUY...THE...BOOKS!
  I'm going to hit the hay now. ...All that dancing I did to the music playing in my head done tuckered me out!

I'd love a traditional publisher, but self-publishing has advantages too.

Traditional publishers produce lots of books, have editorial, and production, and design, and marketing staffs, and big budgets. They can do a lot for writers...make bestsellers out of 'em. If you're a brand name author, that's the way to go.
  Most of the time, if a writer can land a book contract at all, the book lands on the publisher's list, might or might not get placed in book stores...and if all those things happen, the book will land on a shelf among thousands of other books.
  Someday I'll get there.
  But...and it's a big but... Self-publishing (once dubbed by The Big Boys as "Vanity Press"), has come leaps and bounds. You know what the #1 advantage I have right now with my self-published books is?
  I still own all the rights. I have 2 Kindle books, and Amazon owns the Kindle platform...but not the books. Lulu is my publisher of record for the paperback and hardcover versions of my books...but only because they own the ISBN. I signed no contract with them, and can yank my books from Lulu with a few day's notice. It's a big advantage, especially because as Vice-President of Marketing (in addition to doing everything else for my mythical company I call Sexton Enterprises), I plan to publish Sexton books in every available format I can figure out how to use.
  Still... I make no bones about it, I'd rather be published by someone else than published by--you know--me.
...Now that's vanity! 

Why Lulu? (a different question than "Why, Lulu?")

I went with Lulu to publish the paper copies of my novels (1 so far with more to come) for several reasons. First and foremost, I was looking for a self-publisher that didn't seem to want to rip me off. It's buyer beware when it comes to printing people's stuff. Flip through the back pages of Writer's Digest and you'll see a lot of ads for self-publishing companies.
  Lulu was the one I found that earned my trust very quickly. For one, they don't charge upfront fees. There's no setup fee at all. They make money when the author makes money, period. If someone, like me, feels comfortable with the tasks needed: writing (the big one), editing, proofreading, cover layout and design, cover copy, etc., they can do it themselves and Lulu won't say a peep. They offer a' la carte services for a fee, but you don't have to use them. They don't nag you with emails, or ads, or testimonials. They provide a free ISBN number, which by nature of its use makes Lulu the publisher, but that's no big deal. I read the fine print. They use their number, and will deduct taxes from your royalties like any other publisher, but the author retains all rights. If I decide at some point in time that I don't want Lulu to be the publisher, then I pull the book and get my own ISBN. Lulu, in turn, lists my work with Amazon, Bowkers, and several other cataloging companies that booksellers look to for books.
  Most of the markup (and I count anything that doesn't go into my pocket as markup) is Lulu's printing cost, and profit margin...just like any regular publisher has to do.
  They're pretty smart, those people at Lulu, when it comes to protecting our mutual interest. They let me buy my books at cost. In fact, they're forcing me to buy one copy of each...hardcover and softcover, before they'll ship a single copy to anyone. That's not so they guarantee one sale, although it does. I'm sure they're covering themselves. If I have to buy one print copy and approve it before they start printing it on demand, I can't attack them if I don't like the way it looks.
  So... My apologies to anyone who orders a copy of Sexton before my hard copy arrives... I can assure you I'll approve it as fast as I can so my publisher, Lulu, can ship your copy to you.

Response to a dingbat with a bad attitude

I was bored the other night and glanced at a forum about self-publishing. So far, my works are self-published. I'm doing that for two reasons: 1) because I can and five years after leaving a salaried job that paid well, my wife was (rightly) questioning when I was going to generate some revenue from writing, and 2) because I'm convinced that paper publishers (rightly) need to be convinced writer's work will be profitable before they publish. I intend to approach a paper publisher...with sales figures as well as good writing.
  Now...in the forum I was reading, some dingbat with a bad attitude tried to hammer a bunch of self-published writers by explaining that she is a painter of original art. She said, the has an attic full of original art, but that it was going to stay there until she got an art gallery to put on a show.
  The writers reacted with a kind of hurt self-defense.
  I think she's a dingbat. I ought to know. I was doing the dingbat thing myself...
  I had three complete first drafts of novels sitting in the bookcase behind my desk. I hadn't submitted them to a publisher, mostly because I was more focused on creating than I was on selling. Three piles of paper that stood about 15 inches tall when stacked up on top of each other. Ppppppbbbbblllllttt! What the hell was I waiting for? A publisher to detect them through supernatural means? A chance to get (still another) rejection letter praising my writing, but saying they just didn't think there was a market for it at this time?
  Nah. I'll prove there's a market. I'll make a market if I have to. Sometimes it pays to be the cocky little bastard I am...most of the time, in fact. :-D

New alarm clock results in late-night cussing fit

Several months ago I bought an expensive alarm clock. I liked it a lot. It has a circular screen, and I can choose to have it digital, or "analog" with hands on the screen. I can change the color on the screen. I can wake to CD, or iPod, or AM, or FM....set two alarms. It's a very cool clock.
   I hated it. You see (and I saw), the damn thing glows too bright. I has a dimmer switch on the back, but I could, and did, make hand puppet shapes on the wall. It's hard to sleep when light from your damn alarm clock pours through your eyelids like the sun...if the sun was green, or light blue, or navy blue.  Heck, I'm sure I could get paisley if I wanted.
  After six months of bad sleep due to the brilliant nature of the damn clock... I bought a new one yesterday. The old one is in the guest room (I like guests, but I also like it when they don't stay long.)
   Ready for a laugh? Well... I have one for you.
  1) Our bed has a footboard. On the corners of the footboard are oak, decorative, bulb-on-the-bottom and sharpish-on-the-top, thingamabobs.
  2) I  woke in the middle of the night last night and decided to use the toilet.
  3) I'm used to being able to see by the light of the old alarm clock.
  4) I'm 5'6" tall...and my waist is barely above the top of the decorations from hell on the footboard.
  Last night, at 3:07 AM...this is what my wife heard:
FLUSH! "Uh-oh" ...careful step, careful step...confident step...
KERUNCH! "Woof! WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS ROUND DOES THIS DAMN THING HURT SO MUCH?"

And yes... I got no sympathy whatsoever!

I want to hold it in my hands...the book, I mean.

Several people have asked me if Sexton will be sold in print form. Well...shoot. Yes. The answer will be yes.

I'm going to use a print on demand publisher. Print on demand is just what it sounds like: when someone orders a copy, it will be printed and shipped to them. Sexton will be available in trade paperback, hopefully by Halloween. It will be a small press book, which means those who purchase it will find it a bit more expensive than the average trade paperback. A trade paperback, by the way is a larger size than the average paperback... Sometimes it's called a "Softcover" as opposed to a "Hardcover" book.

I'm going to keep the price as close to $20.00 as I can. That's quite a bit more than an ebook, and frankly, the royalty is actually smaller, but like many of my readers (and, please Lord, let there be more of those), I want to be able to hold the thing in my hand and dog-ear the pages like a lot of other people.

For now, though, I have a lot of work to do on my manuscript in terms of formatting for a bunch of different electronic formats. .I'll keep you posted.

Hot Dawg! My first spam...worldwide blog style

I moderate comments on this blog. Odds are very good that if you want to post a comment, I'll allow it. That's part of the fun.
  Having said that...
  I can say with almost complete certainty that the odds I'll ever look for an escort in Delhi, India are minuscule.

I saved the email... You just never know what you'll need.

Update: Storm Clouds Over Sexton (Sexton Chronicles, Vol. 3)

Storm Clouds Over Sexton brings Sexton and Crescens one step closer to war. The three Americans are sent by the same king who ordered the death sentence on them, to the country of Crescens to the south. Their mission: broker peace before war begins in earnest. I'll tell you this much...mission not accomplished.

The first draft was completed in September 2009. I'm polishing the manuscript now (to the tune of 50 pages a day) and hope to have it available for purchase by September 15.

The fourth book in the series, Sexton Sand is about midway through first draft. With any luck at all, I'll have it available for sale by St. Patrick's Day.

Learned it at 14, took until now to put it in practice

  My first paying job was as a camp staff member at Boy Scout Camp Rota-Kiwan. I was 14 years old, and had the merit badges for basketry, woodcarving, and leatherwork, but I needed to know more than the other guys to be able to teach them anything.
  The manager at the local Tandy Leather shop gave me lessons, and I loved them. But... I used to get aggravated when he would make me stop just when it seemed like I was getting the hang of a new technique.
  He would smile and say, "You reached the limit of what you can absorb. We'll start from here next week."
  That would piss me off to no end. I was just getting started!
  Now I know what he meant. He was right for several reason: 1) He knew I would rush, in my excitement to play with the new skill; 2) I would get frustrated quickly when rushing made me make mistakes; 3) my brain needed the break to integrate the skill.
   The same lesson applies to editing my manuscripts. Fifty pages is about all I can handle in one sitting. After that, I get carried away with the story and miss typos, or my attention wavers and I miss a detail that needs to be clarified.
So, although I'd love to plough forward until the wee hours of the morning (it's been 2 years since I last glanced at Storm Clouds Over Sexton), I'm going to stop...for the night.

Saturday night entertainment you don't want...

We live in a 120-year-old house with a lot of trees in the yard. A lot of trees, old trees, with reaching roots that probe for water.  They probed for water...and found it in the pipe that leads from our house to the sewer.
  My mother is coming to visit tomorrow...and today we had water backup into the basement. We'll get the Roto-rooter guy out on Monday, but today it was all on me...
and all over me.
  It happened before, and I couldn't think of another solution. So when I was doing dishes (no dishwasher but me in this house), I had to go downstairs and allow the water to fill buckets from the pipe in the basement. You know which pipe, right? ...The one you're never supposed to open.
  Sometimes I'm dumber than a bucket of corn. We used to have a shop vac, and I could've sucked the water out of the outside pipe with it. But the shop vac blew up last spring and we haven't replaced it. So I had the bright idea of using the carpet cleaner to suck the water out. I wasn't dumb enough to keep trying it when the poor carpet cleaner got hot. Not me! I went downstairs with 3 one-gallon buckets, thanked the lord for my inability to smell, and opened the pipe a little at a time.
  Now we have a bog in the backyard. Take a shower...go down and empty the pipe. Do some dishes...empty the pipe. Take a...don't make me say it...and empty the pipe.
  I don't let stuff like that make me mad. I just deal with it and will let my new best friend, Mr. Roto O'Rooter take a crack at it on Monday morning (their rates are significantly cheaper when it's not the weekend), and go back to merrily flushing.
   In the interim, I think as long as it's dark, I'll spare myself and the buckets a little effort.
   ...City limits and etiquette be damned... I'm peeing outside!

Sexton = Digital Pulp Fantasy

A ride. A fun ride to someplace a little familiar, to which you've never been. A ride with some good friends, some laughs, some danger, and some magic.
  That's what I want for you when you read Sexton Chronicles. That's what I try to deliver when I sit at the keyboard and stuff starts appearing on the screen.
  Some want to write great literature that makes a statement about the human condition, and I applaud that. I don't want to do it, but I applaud it. When I first started writing for fun (I think I was about 8 years old at the time), all I wanted to do was tell a good story. That's what I still want. I'm better at it now than I was then, but the goal is the same.
  I admire the guys who wrote the dime novels, the pulp fiction, in decades past. Now there's another opportunity to write books, sell them for not a lot of money, write 'em by the seat of the pants, and kick them out for people to enjoy. There's no pulp, so far, in the Sexton books--at least not the kind of pulp that cost a tree its life. Ebooks...digital pulp. Buy 'em for three bucks, read 'em as fast as you want, and get ready for the next one.
  I promise you I'll do my best to make it a fun ride for you. I'll try to keep you hooked from beginning to end...with a caveat. The caveat is that I don't intend to end the adventure until I can't write anymore. I also promise I'll bang out the Sexton novels as fast as I can and still write them so they're enjoyable.
  Some of the old pulp fiction writers had a formula. After reading one or two of their dime novels, it became obvious they were following some sort of internal template.
  I don't have a formula. I don't do formulas. My books will have a beginning, a bit of a middle, and a stopping point between volumes--but not an ending. Maybe it's fighting dirty, and maybe it isn't, but I tell you unabashedly...I want to write books you don't want to put down. I make no apology for stopping a short chapter in the middle of the action. Cuss at the digital page if you must, but go ahead and start the next chapter. It's a short chapter!
   Just read another chapter...and then...uh-oh!
      ...read another chapter. It's only a couple of pages.
         ...you have time for one more chapter...
Yeah, that's it. Just keep reading.

Sexton Spice is live!

Sexton Spice went "live" on amazon.com this afternoon. I'm excited! Now I feel like I'm delivering on the promise of a series I made with the tag "fantasy series", in addition, of course, to the thrill of having another book out there for people to read.
  I love to entertain people. It's part of what makes me, me, I suppose.
  It's late now, or early depending on whether one sees being still awake at 1:00 AM a start of a new day, or an end of an old one...and it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference. I can tell you this much...I'm going to bed now, with a little smile on my face.
  I'll post a direct link to this 133,000 word work of mine. A little ride I call Sexton Spice.

In the morning,  I'll start the final edit of the third book in the series, Storm Clouds Over Sexton. It's already been through two drafts and is almost ready to go.

Brief Moments of Duh

We all have them. Some of us, like me for example, have more than others. You know what I mean, don't you? The mind takes a little hiatus and before we know it, we're examining our actions and say "Duh."
  Yesterday I edged the carpet in our guest room in preparation for a visit from my mother. I had a cigarette dangling from my lips as I went around the walls with the vacume cleaner hose in my hand. I sensed the ash was getting long, and being a male and therefore lazy, I lifted the hose and held it up to the end of the lit cigarette. This, I reasoned, would cause the loose ash to rise into the hose and would be better than dropping ash on the carpet.
  Why I thought it was better to have the ash go up the hose rather than vacume it off the carpet--which was my next step in cleaning the room--I don't know.
  Actually, I do know: Brief Moment of Duh. ...BMD, for short.
  A few minutes later, I stood and walked to the dresser to put the cigarette out in the ashtray.
   ...I didn't have to put the cigarette out.
   ...The BMD took care of that. The vacume cleaner sucked not only the loose ash, but the entire cherry-red, hot, tip. Sheared that cigarette off right at the cool, safe part.
   The BMD evaporated in an instant. I laughed and sat on the bed, watching the bag on the upright vacume cleaner with keen interest. It was full of cat hair, dust, and whatever else I'd sucked off the floor in the past several months. After a few minutes, I decided it was safe to remove the full bag and carry it out to the garbage can. I wasn't completely sure there wasn't a smoldering fire waiting to grow...but I decided that if there was going to be a fire, I wanted to share it with my neighbors.
   ...I'm very considerate that way.

Sexton Spice...almost there!

After a pile o' work: minor word changes, corrections, additions, deletions--with pen and paper, and later keyboard and computer--then more work formatting and uploading, Sexton Spice (Sexton Chronicles, Vol. 2) is now in the virtual hands of amazon.com.
  In 48-72 hours, give or take, it will be for sale as a Kindle book. I'll put a direct link on this blog for those who wish to purchase it (and buy a smile from dear old Dave in the process.)
  I spent too long today trying to publish Sexton for Scribd. Evidently, selling things on Scribd is in Beta. I could use the revenue, but have a few problems already with Scribd. For one, they pay 50% to the publisher/writer (that's good), but they only pay when they have a hundred bucks or more to send, and only quarterly. I don't know what kind of traffic Scribd.com has, but it's mostly free stuff and not in the business of marketing or selling anything, so my faith in their ability to move my books is dim at best.
  I'm watching Barnes & Noble and their NOOK with keen interest. They're planning to devote a lot of resources to the NOOK (their e-reader) in the near future, but they're not there yet.
  Like a lot of other parts of life, I'm choosing to control that which I can control: my writing, and my editing.

Fan mail. Made my day!

I got an email this evening from a reader of Sexton. I won't quote it here because it's personal between myself and the reader. It was...an email from an individual who not only read my book, but looks forward to the next one.
  It truly made my day, and it was already a good day. The praise was nice, but I think the real thrill was the sense he conveyed of excitement about something I wrote. ...That somehow, through the magic of twenty-six letters of the alphabet combined into words managed to put pictures in this reader's head, make the reader care about the characters, and gave him an adventure.
  I replied to the young reader, but I forgot to tell him something. Hopefully his Mom will see this and pass the word to him. The message is: I'm going to put his message to me in a frame, and put it on the wall right next to the cover of my little ebook. First book, first piece of fan mail. Seems fitting somehow, and it feels great!
  I promised him Sexton Spice (Sexton Chronicles Book 2) soon. I'd better get busy.

I can do this...

There are hurdles to self-publishing. Lots of them. I plan to tackle them all. Digital publishing makes it a lot easier than the bad old days, when a writer paid a printer and ended up with a trunk load of books.
  ebooks have made their debut and they (unlike paper books) are on a sharp upward move. It took me a long time to decide to self-publish rather than go the traditional route, but now I'm in. The way I see it, most writers just don't have the business experience to make a go of self-publishing. I think I have that kind of experience. Here's my checklist, or To Do list:

1. Write books. Status: first book in the series is up on Amazon, second book will be soon, third book is done, and the 4th is half done.
2. Convert manuscripts to formats acceptable to all ebook sellers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Scribd, and Kobo.
3. Publish to all ebook sellers
4. Market the books: press releases to local media, Facebook ads, personal blog, friends, and friends of friends
5. Keep writing.
6. Maintain rights to all work, for future sales to paper publishers

It's going to be a lot of work, but work that feels like fun isn't work.
Fortunately, I'm in a good position. I don't have to make enough money to offset a high salary. I only have to make more money writing than I do at my part time job...and then I can write full-time.

In case you're wondering...I wrote this on the fly. I wasn't 100% sure I can achieve what I see as success when I write the title of this blog entry.
   ...Now I am sure. Yes. I can do this.

That bit about coming home feeling shorter? Poppycock!

Got Mother-in-law and brother-in-law out of bed on time. Check! Packed, ready to go to Sea-Tac airport 3.5 hours early (dammit). Check! Returned rental car while wife and in-laws checked luggage... Check! When they found out my mother-in-law needed a wheelchair, we had outstanding service from a man who pushes wheelchair-bound people around the airport.
   The flight from Seattle to Minneapolis was smooth, and seamless. No weather issues, no screaming bansheebaby creatures, and a smooth flight.
   Got in at Minneapolis, under the assumption our 1.5 hour layover would be sufficient time to enjoy a meal and maybe do a little shopping in some of the stores. Did you know Best Buy has a vending machine? Yeah! A vending machine that dispenses cell phones, etc. Tanya told me I could look all I wanted...but that she had the credit card and the debit card and I could use either one if I could peel it from her cold dead fingers with my cold, dead, detached teeth! I took that as a maybe.
  It was not to be. We were carted (it's a verb. Feel free to check), to close to our terminal for our connecting flight...then transferred Mom to a wheelchair.
   It didn't matter. When we got to the terminal...the flight had been changed to another gate. We went (a motley, drag-ass crew 1/4 of which was being wheeled) to the appointed gate. After 1/2 hour there, I went back and checked the sign. Our 7:30 PM flight had been changed to a 9:00 PM flight. An hour later, we found out the flight had been moved to another gate. One more wheelchair assistant (I don't know his title, but the guy was great) pushed Mom to the next 'new' gate. He was at least 60 years of age, that man pushing the wheelchair, but he advised us to take the moving walkways. We did...and he managed to keep up with us. I was impressed.
  We were supposed to land in Saginaw, MI at 10:06 PM, and got there at 12:30 AM. Flew through some pretty cool lightning along the way...but we landed safe, and sound...if a bit tired.
  Then, because I was the one suffering from a 12-hour long nicotine fit (abated in good part because of a nicotine patch and a few of those little tobacco pouches you suck on to get a fix), I went out to long-term parking to find my Mother-in-law's Grand Marquis...in the dark...in the rain...and I didn't have any idea where in the lot it was. I found it eventually...parked next to the 1973 baby-blue Cadillac my other brother-in-law drives. Hard to miss a 143-foot-long ancient Cadillac, even in the dark and the rain. $36 later, I was in the 2007 Grand Marquis, out of long-term parking, and picking up the rest of the family.
    All is well that ends well...and I now pronounce this day at a good end. I'm going to sleep now. It's late, I'm tired...but tonight my head will rest on my pillow, in my bed...and a cat will probably rest on my head.

Coming back always seems shorter

Have you noticed the phenomenon? It's artificial, of course, but coming home seems to go faster than heading out to a new place. I think it's because things become more and more familiar and, well, homey...when you get close to home.
   It's been a great vacation, even the parts I dreaded before we left. Now it's time to go home, and I'm ready. So is my wife. We've eaten, and walked, and driven, and seen, and done, and shared. All good stuff. Still, I'm looking forward to climbing the steps at home, chucking the bags in the dining room, and watching the cats ignore us for a while until they forgive us for leaving them alone for 10 days.
  Unlike this place, we have tile in the shower...not marble. No one is going to make the bed in the morning unless it's one of us. If I want a newspaper, I'm going to have to buy one. And that's okay with me.
   It's time to go home...and bake some bread.

Next time you hear from me, I'll be there.

A great dinner, a better view

I've been a lot of places, and had some great meals, and tonight will be an unforgettable example of both.
  We started our day with a plan (normally a nice, but useless gesture when traveling, especially with me.) We planned to take the light rail (a little electric train that runs up and down Tacoma) at 7:00 AM to the train station and hop a train to Seattle.
   There were two flaws to our plan: 1) we forgot to see what time the light rail starts on Saturday, and 2) we forgot to see if the train to Seattle runs on Saturday. The answers to questions one and two are, in order: 1) 8:00 AM, and 2) No. It made sense once I read the signs and thought about it. Both are commuter trains. They cater to during the business week type stuff. So...we decided to visit Seattle on Monday.
  We drove up to Defiance Point. I still don't know what it defies or why, and don't really care. They have zoo/aquarium there. I balked a little at the $12 admission cost, thinking I would pull one of my pattended express visits. I was wrong, and admit it cheerfully. It was well worth the price. The exhibits were excellent and we got to see the animals up close...
   In one particular case...a little too close.
   Have you ever seen a walrus? A real one? I hadn't. Until this morning, and then all too close. The one I'm talking about weighs a little over 3,000 pounds. A friendly looking fellow, he was, lying on a rock minding his own business. Then we went down a cave like thingamajig...and got a peek underwater at the habitat of the walrus. The windows were fogged, and a couple of kids and their parents were trying to peer through. I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and wiped off the fog.
  As I was wiping off the fog, my buddy the big-ass walrus came drifting down. He was a dark, lumbering submarine of a thing and made a beeline toward me and the glass. I swear he was grinning when he lifted up at the last second and...and... (Here it comes, and I hope you're more prepared for it than I was)...and...
   I'm not sure what it's called when a walrus shows his dark privates in a smear on an upward tilt three inches in front of a grown man...but I think I named it something that sounded like a cry of "SWEET JESUSLORDALMIGHTY-WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-THAT!"...or something akin to that.
  As you might guess...I didn't spend much more time in that particular exhibit...

:-D

It was cooler than it sounds

I'm sure, like me, the first thought you have when you're at a family reunion for a family you're related to only by marriage, and they put up a screen for a slide show, your first thought is NOT, "Wow! This is going to be awesome!"

It wasn't my thought. Especially when I saw the warning from the PowerPoint software. You know the warning. It's the one that says (and I'm not making this up) "Slide 1 of 397."

Fortunately for what's left of my sanity (a shaky beginning at best), the man who put it together is a retired Air Force Colonel who doesn't waste time. He said the slides were timed to change every 5 seconds and that the show wouldn't stop for questions. He had photos from 1910 to 1987, and most of 'em were very good shots. I'm a history buff anyway, and I found it fascinating.

If you'll indulge me for a bit... I find history intriguing. It lights my imagination to see old photos, and to put them in context--especially on an everyday level--with the lives of people. From the fashion of their clothing, to the buildings and implements in the photos, to the facial expressions, there is much to see.

Yeah. I can write with stuff like that as imagination-ignition material.

The Museum of Glass

Tanya and I went to the Museum of Glass today. I balked a little at the $12 admission fee. It wasn't the fee...I just believe in the express mode for viewing museums. The express mode involves me sprinting by any and all static displays... Therefore, the admission price is wasted on me.
  I much prefer to spend $12 bucks in a pseudo religious way...like at a strip club. Yes, there, at least, when I look at something I can't touch...I can say, "Nice job, God!"

Of course... I never, ever go to those places. But if I did...you know...just sayin'.

Okay...on a serious note:

It was very cool watching the artists make glass objects. They had theater seating in front of the kilns, and a narrator announcing what the artists were doing. That was worth the twelve bucks.

Uh-oh. No good can come of this...

I'm feeling impish today. Grinningly, brightly, amusingly impish.

...I'll let you know what happens.

We'll see if I get it

I've always wanted my own copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. Found one in a used bookstore here in Tacoma. It's used, of course (or I'm sure it would be so far out of my price range as to make me forget even looking at the price), but it's still in the box, and still has the original magnifying glass it comes with.

Tomorrow, my super-secret plan (so secret, I'm willing to blog it) is to lure my unsuspecting wife into the bookstore, and when her arms are full of whatever treasures she happens to unearth, I will risk throwing my back out and heft the dictionary up on the counter. When she opens her mouth to say something, I will lift one arm and shout, "Oh, look, it's an albatross!" ...With any luck at all, the distraction will give me time to swipe the debit card.

I'll keep you posted.

PS--still finding ways around the hotel internet filters to post on this blog...

Tricky...moving target

I'm not sure which one of us is the moving target...me, or the blog. Still working from a kiosk at a hotel. The security on this station won't let me see my own blog. I keep finding ways to circumvent the system, but what worked yesterday didn't work today. By extension, that means what works today probably won't work tomorrow.

This is...in a word...fun.

Snuck in the back way...to my own blog

Interesting...

The Internet kiosk at this hotel won't let me pull up my blog the normal way. I can't say as I blame them, but they have a net nanny sort of thing that doesn't like blogs. I laughed the first time it came up, warning me that there might be adult material ahead. There isn't any...I know there isn't any...and still I felt a little flicker of hope. Kidding! Don't get any ideas, buster! I moderate the stuff that gets put up here!

Look inside the book

Look "Inside the Book"... When someone (hey, why not you?) looks to buy books on Amazon...some titles offer a look inside.
   But not many.
  This evening, which, by the way, I just noticed is now this morning, I began to upload the files that will allow potential buyers (again--why not you?) to look inside my book. When you go to a bookstore and are thinking about buying a book...you pick it up, flip it open, and take a glance at what you will get when you buy the book.Why shouldn't you be able to do that with an ebook?
  You should be able to do that with an ebook. You can...with some. On Amazon, the picture of the cover will have some cheerful lettering extolling you to do just that. Most don't.
  After tonight, I can tell you why most don't. ...It's a pain in the ass, that's why! Trust me. I know. I just went through the process. I'll spare you the gory details, but it involves a fair amount of pdf knowledge, some patience with getting approval to be a seller as well as a publisher, writer, marketing dude, and (oh yeah...) a writer!
   And now we wait. I converted the pdf file, uploaded the cover art (modified to the proper dpi), jumped through the hoops, hooplets, and hoppers, and I think...uploaded the damn thing. Now, someone on the amazon end of things will look at the zip file (another step), then at the files, do his or her thing, and then you'll see those friendly letters telling you to Look Inside Sexton.
  I'm glad I did it. The reader deserves a peek inside before buying a book at any price (shameless ad: mine is only $2.99), and I want to honor that right of yours.

This time I'm going to make it!

Charlie Brown, cartoon character turned American icon, tried to kick a football held by evil little Lucy. Every time he tried, she yanked it away at the last second.
   I feel like Charlie Brown every Sunday when it's time for Meet the Press. I saw the teaser this morning, and it sounds like I can watch the whole show without mooning the television. That's right, baby, I'm going for it! This time, I'm going to make it.
   Having said that, I will admit I like to hedge my bets. I have 9 minutes before the show starts. That's enough time for me to get out the duct tape and make a pair of suspenders. I'm also going to put oven mitts on each hand...which will make it difficult to unbutton and unzip my trousers.
  *I reserve the right to unleash my usual string of cusses when the talking heads cheese me off, but I promise not to leave any cheek prints on the screen.