Caffeinated Miracles

It's a bloody miracle, but I actually finished Chapter Eleven of the YA dystopic I've been working on, "The Line." The sticky culprit in my slow going has been 'The Heist' chapter, as I've been calling it.  I've been stuck for ages.


Alleluiah!


Now we're onto 'The Chase' part, which leads to the 'Hideout' part, which leads to 'The Kiss' :O...blah, blah, blah...you get the point.


It should be smooth sailing from here because I've reached the peak and now it's all "downhill."


Such a relief.


I'm sure it's holey as hell but at least it's down on paper, kind of.


I want to compliment Coffee Bean for their lovely Caramel Ultimate Ice Blended, of which I indulged in this afternoon. Without your sugary caffeinated bliss, I never would have been able to power through Chapter Eleven after the kids had gone to bed.


From the bottom of my, well, heavily inflated bottom, I thank you.

Adrift

I took a few moments yesterday and wrote a two page short story.  I haven't written a word of either book I'm working on, and I felt the need in order to stretch my legs a bit, if you'll forgive the metaphor.  30k words into the dystopic and I'm burnt out.  I need a break from it, my enthusiasm is gone.  Which is too bad because I really need to finish it pronto, but my brain isn't cooperating.


As for the depression book, I realize there is nothing more I can do to it without the aid of a professional editor, so I don't plan on tinkering with it until that said Editor is found.  So, I didn't want to stretch my metaphorical legs on it either.  It would be tantamount to walking in place.  Invigorating for a moment, but then pointless because honestly, you don't get anywhere.


Hence the short story, which I'm afraid is far too personal to publish, otherwise I'd slap it up here for you all to gawk at -- but no.  This one got emailed to a few select friends and the rest of you can all read it after I'm dead.


This leaves me in a bit of a quandary however, because I am finally caught up on all the work I've been buried under the last few weeks and now I am able to put the "writer hat" back on (I wear so many, it's hard to keep track sometimes), and my brain is stuck in "work mode."


Usually reading a good book will cure this, but after trying this for two days I'm tired of reading.  Nothing is sparked.
Nothing is sparking.


I think I'll go live a little and then make a resolution to myself to finish the new chapter of the dystopic by the end of next week.


I recall at the beginning of all this, I was writing a chapter a week and somewhere along the way, I started to fall short of that goal and now, I'm all but drifting.


I'm giving myself the rest of this week and this weekend to read not, write not, think not.  After that, it's back to the grindstone.


I really wish I had a professional nag.  Any volunteers?

Premier Digital Publishing Goes Live!

Now available exclusively on Barnes n Noble.com for the Nook and NookColor, Premier Digital Publishing is proud to announce legendary fantasy author Piers Anthony's novels, VOLK and REALTY CHECK.


VOLK is Piers Anthony's serious novel of World War II and forbidden love, featuring a romance between a Nazi SS officer and his American friend's fiancé, a pacifist Quaker. Politically incorrect, it covers some hard truths. Not all Nazis were evil, and the allies also kept death camps. The author was in Europe as a child, deported in 1940, and raised as a Quaker, so has some basis to address the subjects.

In REALTY CHECK an elderly couple, Penn and Chandelle, rent an expensively furnished house in Philadelphia for a vacation getaway. It turns out that the building is not only luxurious but allows its inhabitants to travel through time and space by simply walking out the back door. Overall, this is an inter-generational as well as intergalactic charmer, hallmarked by fast pacing, strong characterizations and skillful prose.

Current Basic ePublication Time Line

1) Write the book (3 months to 10 years, depending on the book and author)

2) Rewrite the book (because the first draft is never good, believe me)

3) Find an eEditor. 

4) Author (or agent, if represented) negotiates deal with the publisher. With print publishers, authors keep 5% of paperback and 10% of hardcover per book sold, but in ePublication, authors can get anywhere from 35 - 85% of sales price, the distributor (Amazon(Kindle), Barnes and Noble(Nook), Apple(eBook), etc. takes a cut with the ePublication company taking a cut too. 

5) eEditor edits the book - 2 - 3 weeks depending on the word count of the book. More if it's huge.

6) Publisher obtains waivers, and licensing agreements for all photographs and art -- this can take 2 to 3 months because lawyers are slow and never pick up their phones.

7) Final pages are sent to be digitized (takes about 2 weeks)

8) Publisher negotiates fee for book with the distributors, plus the marketing campaign is planned and negotiated with distributors (2 to 3 more weeks)

9) Book launch date picked (holiday season? summer release?) and viola, it's done.

All in all, if my counting serves me correct, from the time the book is given to the eEditor, it takes approximately four months for it to reach the consumer, not bad considering it takes a year for print.  an eBook can also be available on Print on Demand with Amazon, so while your book can be available on eReaders, it can also be purchased on paper. This deal should be negotiated by the ePublisher.

Hope this helps!

It'll all be out of date by next month...Believe me.

Reading is Fun Until it's Work

No writing for the next few days, I have work to do.
Proofing one manuscript and reading another.


I'm going a bit cross-eyed but it's all for a good reason.


Making a living can be so tedious sometimes.

Poor eBook Quality Hampers Reader Enjoyment

I am a voracious reader.  When I start a book, I tend to finish it quickly.  Since I got my NookColor for Christmas (I actually bought it for myself around Thanksgiving, and wrapped the empty box) I've been consuming mass amounts of literature even more.  It's a good addiction to have, as far as I'm concerned.  As long as my family doesn't mind late dinners, frequent "Shhh! I only have ten pages left!" and other varied neglected household chores (I actually forgot to pay the bills one week I was so wrapped up in "Pillars of the Earth").


Anyways, I am in love with my NookColor -- BUT...


And this is a big BUT...


I am getting increasingly frustrated with the poor quality of the digitalization of these books.
I have come across several novels that have repeat words, typos (usually punctuation substitutions, like quotes instead of commas, and what have you), screwy margins and some that even have empty pages, missing text and pages with only one paragraph on them.


Do none of these companies ever actually flip through each page of their digitized book to make sure it's up to par before they release it out into the marketplace?
From the crap I've seen, I'd say no.


And just to show how I'm not exaggerating, I'm going to list the ones that have had errors in them.


"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
"North & South" by Elizabeth Gaskell
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafron
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold


And I'm sure there's more I can't think of at the moment but these were the ones that had irritated me the most.


DEAR E-PUBLISHERS,
DO BETTER.
THANK YOU

Sense Sense

I've been stuck on this blasted scene in "The Line" for weeks.  Trying to start. Can't.
Trying to start again. Stuck.


Going back and reading what I'd written so far.  Nothing.


Finally, I gave up today and only wrote the dialogue.  Forget the action.  Forget the sideways glances and the thoughts behind it all.  I think deep down in the recesses of my bones I will always be a playwright first and hear dialogue.  I hear a scene before I see it.


Does that make any sense at all?
My senses have no sense.


Heh.


At least it got me unstuck...

Untitled Poem

Monotony dulls vision
Affection festers afar
Proximity numbs sense


See her shrouded
Feel her vacant
Hear her heat
Taste the present
Remember


Before fault lines quaked porcelain face

Six Feet Under, or More

The days bleed together.  Drowning in a river of sick children, my skin is soaked numb. I resort to desperate measures for entertainment: laundry.


Mountains upon mountains of sullied towels, sheets and endless pajamas.  My brain atrophies with inactivity and shrivels with repeated use of Facebook games.


I fear for my sanity if circumstances do not improve.


Worse yet.


I'm out of chocolate and coffee creamer.


Worse still.


When the office heard I was drowning, their idea of a life preserver was to send clerical work on service provider tax documents.


This is my hell.

Publishers Ripping off Authors on eBook Sales!!!

Here's an Authors Guild report regarding how publishers are ripping
off writers on ebook royalties:
E-Book Royalty Math: The Big Tilt
To mark the one-year anniversary of the Great Blackout, Amazon's week long shut down of e-commerce for nearly all of Macmillan's titles, we’re sending out a series of alerts this week and next on the state of e-books, authorship, and publishing. The first installment (“How
Apple Saved Barnes & Noble. Probably.”) discussed the outcome, one year later, of that battle. Today, we look at the e-royalty debate, which has been simmering for a while, but is likely to soon heat up as the e-book market grows.
E-book royalty rates for major trade publishers have coalesced, for the moment, at 25% of the publisher’s receipts. As we’ve pointed out previously, this is contrary to longstanding tradition in trade book
publishing, in which authors and publishers effectively split the net proceeds of book sales (that's how the industry arrived at the standard hardcover royalty rate of 15% of  list price). Among the ills of this radical pay cut is the distorting effect it has on publishers’
incentives: publishers generally do significantly better on e-book sales than they do on hardcover sales. Authors, on the other hand, always do worse.
How much better for the publisher and how much worse for the author?
Here are examples of author’s royalties compared to publisher’s gross profit (income per copy minus expenses per copy), calculated using industry-standard contract terms:
“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett
Author’s Standard Royalty: $3.75 hardcover; $2.28 e-book. Author’s
E-Loss = -39%
Publisher’s Margin: $4.75 hardcover; $6.32 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +33%
“Hell’s Corner,” by David Baldacci
Author's Standard Royalty: $4.20 hardcover; $2.63 e-book. Author’s
E-Loss = -37%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.80 hardcover; $7.37 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +27%
“Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.05 hardcover; $3.38 e-book. Author’s
E-Loss = -17%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.45 hardcover; $9.62 e-book. Publisher’s E-Gain = +77%
So, everything else being equal, publishers will naturally have a strong bias toward e-book sales. It certainly does wonders for cash flow: not only does the publisher net more, but the reduced royalty means that every time an e-book purchase displaces a hardcover purchase, the odds that the author’s advance will earn out -- and the
publisher will have to cut a check for royalties -- diminishes. In more ways than one, the author’s e-loss is the publisher’s e-gain.
Inertia, unfortunately, is embedded in the contractual landscape. If the publisher were to offer more equitable e-royalties in new contracts, it would ripple through much of the publisher’s catalog: most major trade publishers have thousands of contracts that require an automatic adjustment or renegotiation of e-book royalties if the
publisher starts offering better terms. (Some publishers finesse this issue when they amend older contracts, many of which allow e-royalty rates to quickly escalate to 40% of the publisher’s receipts. Amending old contracts to grant the publisher digital rights doesn’t trigger
the automatic adjustment, in the publisher's view.) Given these substantial collateral costs, publishers will continue to strongly resist changes to their e-book royalties for new books.
Resistance, in the long run, will be futile. As the e-book market continues to grow, competitive pressures will almost certainly force publishers to share e-book proceeds fairly. Authors with clout simply won’t put up with junior partner status in an increasingly important
market. New publishers are already willing to share fairly. Once one of those publishers has the capital to pay even a handful of authors meaningful advances, or a major trade publisher decides to take the plunge, the tipping point will likely be at hand.

The Virus Conspiracy

Apparently, there's a deluge of virus' out in the world who insist on infecting my children so I am unable to write.  I am once again nursing a child who literally coughs every thirty seconds.
No joke.
I timed it.
Guess I'll have to be brilliant next week.
Of course, about then, my other kid will catch it.
It's a conspiracy I tell you.

Naya's Song, "Dogs Days Are Over"

Happiness, hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children and your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck 'em with drainpipes
By someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come