Category Archives: Novel

Stories related to writing a novel and the process of learning to write and publish.

The Sands Casino

23 Sunday Jul 2017

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BlackHat is in Vegas this week.  That’s the big cyber security conference for my tribe.  I’m not going, I actually leave for vacation mid-week, but it draws my attention to my novel, Cyber War I.  Allow me to explain part of my story.  I often tell people I didn’t make much up, and it’s true.  I called the casino in my story, the Arabian Nights.  Think about it.

The Sands isn’t actually a casino anymore.  It used to be.  Now it’s the name of the corporation that owns some of the largest casinos in Las Vegas and Macau – the Venetian perhaps being the most famous.  The Sands Corporation is majority owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson.  You might know him as a prominent GOP contributor.  His elimination of financial support lead to Bush having to withdraw from the 2016 primaries.  His pro-Isreali speech at Yeshiva University in 2013 lead to his casino empire experiencing a major cyber attack by Iran in 2014.

The details are a little fuzzy to me now, but what I recall was he gave a speech where he proposed that the US should detonate a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert.  So that they would know what a nuclear attack looks like.  Sheldon’s idea of a deterrent.  Iran didn’t find it amusing.  A few months later, Iran attacked Sheldon’s casino in Bethlehem PA, where they obtained privileged user credentials that allowed them to proceed with a major cyber attack against the Sand’s casinos in Vegas.  The week-long attack cost Sheldon well over $40M.  Inadvertently, Iran took down the Active Directory services which stopped them from gaining access to the Macau casino network.  That would have pushed the cost over $100M.

If you read my book, which only an exclusive 100 people in the world have, you’d know this is all fairly transparent.  Sheldon is Sam Sumner.  The Sands is the Arabian Nights.  The larger story of course is based on Iran responding to the US Stuxnet attack against their centrifuges.  And the climax ends at the BlackHat conference.  Even though it took me a couple of years to start my book, I knew I was going to base it off this Sheldon storyline after reading about how his speech at Yeshiva University led to his casino attack by Iran.  Why bother making stuff up?

 

Still at it

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

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I’m still at it.  Still writing my next novel.  Being a sequel, there will be more similarities than not, but everything will be different to me.  I have different objectives.  I had two goals with the first book, discovering if I could tell a story, and learning the process of writing and publishing.  I’m satisfied I succeeded at both.  Enough people have given me positive feedback that I told a good story, and having completed the publishing process is inherent evidence of achieving my second objective.  This second book will be an effort to improve in everything I sucked at with the first.

I won’t rush it like the last.  I’d finish it again in six months if I could but this year is different.  I’m learning a new job and I don’t care to ignore my running habit as much this time around.  Not that I couldn’t use a few pounds but I gained ten last year.  Taking more time though should lead to a better book.  Cyber War I had enough typos that I’ve only recently fixed them all.  I think.

Going slower should lead to higher quality but I’ll also use better tools and perform more editing.  Using Evernote for the first book worked well but the font was so small I couldn’t see the errors.  I’m now using Scrivener, which contains the notebook-like features of Evernote but has a thousand times more benefits.  It’s the ultimate writer’s toolkit.

I was happy with the editing I received on Cyber War I but it was limited due to the money I put into it.  I intend to spend perhaps double this time.  And of course I’ll take more time to review and respond to the suggested edits.  My step sister Shirley visited me this last week and told me in so many words I could benefit greatly from more editing.  Point taken.

I’m doing other things differently as well.  I have much more of an outline prepared for the sequel.  It’s not complete, like the first I don’t yet know my ending.  I didn’t have an ending for Cyber War I until I was nearly half way through.  My climax came to me during a run and I immediately wrote it before filling in the second half of the story.  That much is true for this book.  I don’t write my chapters serially.  Like Schrödinger’s cat, I write three or four chapters simultaneously, I even move them around before determining a final position of events at closing time.

I can say, and this is probably why I’m blogging on this topic, that I’ve picked up the pace the last couple of weeks on my writing.  It’s not easy with so many other priorities.  Between binge-watching Thirteen Reasons Why, reading three books at once, learning the new job, and hiding from Karen while she’s on a home improvement surge, it’s hard to do it all.

My New Copy Editor

10 Saturday Jun 2017

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A month ago, one week into my new job, I navigated my way up to the 11th floor to look at my old office from when I worked in the Denver Main Central Office 23 years earlier.  Not sure of the date on this photo, but the art deco building was completed in the early 1940s.  The 11th floor was completely empty, under construction.  The experience left me nostalgic still, thinking of old work friends.  Namely my boss Lesley, and one of my colleagues, Victoria. Maybe I thought of them together because they were close friends themselves.  So I called them.  We finally met up this morning for breakfast at Tangerine on 28th and Iris.

They are both doing well, traveling the globe together to exotic locales, most recently Northern Italy.  Sadly, both their husbands have passed.  They look healthy and remain active though.  I’m going to ask Lesley to hike around the Indian Peaks later this summer.  Victoria is not exactly the outdoor type.

I also intend to ask Lesley to help me with my next novel.  She’s retired now, but apparently performs copy editing.  The irony here is that, as my boss, she constantly edited my work.  My job as a data network design engineer involved a great deal of technical writing.  She would take a red pen to my papers.  She no doubt enjoyed this activity as she was a college English professor in an earlier career.  I’m also hoping she will help me with some of my dialog that takes place in the UK, because she’s also British.  Lesley will be the perfect copy editor.

The Waning Days of Winter

31 Friday Mar 2017

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winterrun

My week of vacation is waning with the final days of winter.  I know it’s been spring for the last week, but the mountains celebrate seasons on their own time.  Yesterday I ran 15 miles in 50° weather.  Today I ran 17 miles in 40° and pouring rain.  Tomorrow I’ll run 20 miles in 30° and snow.

The free time has been great for my other hobbies as well.  I’ve read a couple of cyber crime books.  I’ve been prepping for a book promotion and fighting with my distributor, Ingram Spark.  Not sure who lost but I ended my Amazon ebook contract with them today and published directly to that venue using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).  Ten times easier and highly recommended.

I have very little good to say about Ingram Spark.  They’ve been a nightmare.  They have zero quality control.  They don’t don’t check to see if retailers have successfully uploaded content from their portal.  They don’t check anything.  Everything is totally self serve.  My experience leaves me finding very little reason to use them for my next novel.  The self publishing tools at Apple and Amazon are significantly better.  KDP even spell checks your manuscript.

The Kirkus Review

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

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I was slow to warm up to the idea of paying for a professional review.  Not that I was concerned over the criticism, but I simply wasn’t comfortable with how marketing works in this industry.  I’m learning and I’ll leverage this review for some promotional plans.

It’s good feedback too.  Sort of reminds me of working with my editor.  I can’t thank my friends enough who have posted online reviews for me.  Those are like gold.  But, not surprisingly, they contain very little criticism.  That makes receiving professional criticism so much more interesting.  I’ve posted my Kirkus review below, but first here is what I think about it.

There are two negative critiques.  The point of some of my less-than-great writing examples doesn’t bother me.  I rushed this novel with a first draft in 6 months and fully published in 9 months, with minimal editing while working my day job.  I met my objective of getting a book on the shelf.  Plus, that’s really just an example of my writing style that I am okay with.  So no biggie.  The criticism on my character development though stun a bit.  Not just because I know it to be true.  One of my lessons learned was that I’m weak in this area.  Still, it hurts for the review to use my lead character to make this point.  I was somewhat confident on my efforts describing my protagonist.  It’s good criticism though.

I’m totally thrilled by the compliments.  Clearly this reviewer appreciates the tech thriller genre but it made me feel pretty good to be told I did well describing technical detail through dialog.  I initially used a large amount of narrative to describe highly complex topics and received negative feedback on this from my beta readers.  I responded by rewriting it into dialog.  To be fair, I deleted a great deal as well, but good to know my efforts were deemed successful by this reviewer.  Especially since my target audience is technical.  Below is the review.

*****

Computer-security analysts stumble upon plans for a cyberstrike that could immobilize the United States in Mahoney’s debut thriller.

After a security breach involving user IDs, Cyber Business International’s investigators trace the source of the hack to one of its clients, the Arabian Nights Casino in Macau. Rob Warner, who leads CBI’s incident-response team, heads to the Asian territory to investigate. It turns out that Justin Peters, a CBI network administrator there, had been doing work for the casino when someone accessed his privileged user account and wreaked havoc. Rob, however, is suspicious of the casino’s director of cybersecurity operations, Edmund Ho; he may have a grudge against the casino that stems from his demotion after a cyberattack that crippled the local network by flooding it with traffic. Further investigation reveals other players, which leads CBI to predict a similar attack in the United States. But a larger conspiracy may be at play—which would explain why an assassin is targeting Rob. Mahoney’s acronym-laden technological jargon gives his novel an air of sophistication. For example, he intelligently defines terms such as “botnet” and “exploit kit” by context, generally via dialogue between Rob and others, such as Rob’s friend and colleague Bill Johnson. Myriad plot elements along the way keep the tale exciting, including the actions of an American spy and more than one hired killer and a Las Vegas–set final act in which many characters converge. Some oddly structured sentences slow the story down, though, as when Rob questions “flirting with guidelines, well ethics, shoot, the law, like he did in Macau.” The novel also includes little information about its protagonist’s personal life, although it’s abundantly clear that his job is putting a strain on his marriage.

A smart, highly detailed entry in the techno-thriller genre.

*****

Kirkus reviews are known to be almost entirely a rehash of the storyline.  I feel fortunate to receive as much commentary as I did.  The final sentence is what I’ll be able to attach to book covers and other media to promote the book.

The Sequel

10 Friday Mar 2017

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Cyber War

I’ve started writing the sequel to Cyber War I and am interested in feedback and ideals.  I have the outline about 50% complete, and have even written a couple of random scenes.  If you’re interested in how writers write, I outline the story first to a degree that includes not only the storyline, but concepts I want to cover.  That’s where I’m interested in your thoughts.

I’m limited by my genre, tech-thriller, in terms of how much I can stray from the action.  A literary novel could contain unlimited extraneous topics.  Going off topic too much in a thriller loses the audience.  I only added in a single commentary to Cyber War I, that of automation.  My intent was to generate awareness of the current impact of automation in the technology industry.  I did this by expressing various viewpoints through character dialog.  I even shared my partial viewpoint near the end, which might not be good form but still, I think readers could take away their own point of view without me having added too much bias.  I’ve had feedback on the corporate culture in the book, but that was really just coincidental as part of the story setting.  I wasn’t trying to make any point with that.

The next book will of course focus on the same topic, cyberwar, which is a cyber attack between nation states.  I intend to add in commentary on big data and data privacy, which I think are highly correlated, much in the same way I commented on automation in the first book.  Do you think I’m missing anything else that is very close in topic to cybercrime?  Something that would be relevant and topical?  And a natural fit with hacking?  I need to do research on these topics ahead of time; that greatly speeds up the writing effort.

By the way, this graphic will very likely be my cover for the second book.  Any thoughts on that?  Any characters, for those of you who read the first, you care to see return?  Any that need to die?  Crowdsourcing here.  This is your opportunity.

Color Mode

25 Saturday Feb 2017

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This is a bit geeky but I want to share some of my lessons learned as a survivor of the indie publishing process.  This mistake cost me some money because I bought a handful of books to sell on consignment at a local bookstore before discovering this problem.  The issue was some of the text in my book was a lighter shade of black than the rest of the text.  I had two shades of black.  Turns out, there are maybe 1004 shades of black.

RGB represents the three primary colors of red, green and blue.  Computers, and TVs, essentially all monitors, output color in RGB because they are working with light.  Think the colors of the rainbow.  All the colors of the rainbow combined are white.  You see the white in the middle of the RGB Venn diagram above.  Conversely, when there is zero light, a monitor screen is black.  RGB is represented by 0 to 255 values for red, green and blue respectively.  Based on what I just said, 0,0,0 is black and 255,255,255 is white.  Microsoft Word outputs fonts in RGB because it assumes it is outputting to your computer screen.  Your printer converts RGB fonts to CMYK as you print.

Which brings us to CMYK or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key.  Key means black because the last letter in black is “k” and “b” might lead you to think blue. Your printer isn’t dealing in light like a monitor, it’s working with ink.  Think a box of crayons.  You were told in elementary school that all the colors of the rainbow make white, but you could never get all your colors to come out as white no matter how big your box of crayons.  CMYK is represented by values from 0 to 100.  Hence, the Venn diagram above yields black for the 0,0,0,100 combination of C, M, Y and K.  Black and White are on opposite ends of the spectrum for RGB vs CMYK.  And they use a different amount of pixels, 256 vs 101 per color setting.  Make sense?

When I had to use Adobe InDesign to layout my book and create print and ebook formats for my publisher, I didn’t know that this graphics package was preparing my fonts for a printer and converting MS Word fonts from RGB to CMYK.  This alone would not have been an issue had it converted everything to the same color mode.  For some reason my MS Word fonts had two different values for black.  Or at least they converted to two discrete values.  One was a default setting for black that InDesign calls Black, for which the CMYK values are 0,0,0,100.  Or maybe 100,100,100,100.  I forget but think both sets of values are equal.  The second default setting was called Registration.  Its CMYK values are various numbers for each of the four settings.  The result is a lighter shade of black.

My publisher, Ingram Spark, which is really a distributor as I have my own publishing firm, Lobo Media, returns an electronic proof to me to look for issues with my print uploads.  Had I actually printed it, I might have noticed the color disparity.  I only reviewed them online though, and guess what?  The CMYK values don’t contain nearly as many pixels as RGB, think 100 vs 255 as printing is at less resolution than display monitors, so I could not discern the disparity on my screen.  It shows up in ink on paper, but not on a monitor.

I think the lesson here is to print out at least part of your proof to look for printing errors.  I’m blogging this because it was a topic of discussion at my book signing Thursday night.  I signed and gave away my leftover copies that contained the misprint.  They are totally readable, but flawed.  While Karen was walking around assuring everyone that the kinky sexual preferences of the book’s protagonist were entirely fiction, I was having conversations on color mode.

Marketing Plan

24 Friday Feb 2017

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Last night, I got my cake, and got to eat it too.  That was how it felt to talk about nothing other than my book with friends for a two hour happy hour, that stretched into five hours. Don’t ask me how bakers can make photo-realistic frosting.  It involves printing and leaves me with the impression we’ve gone as far as we’ll ever go with technology.

ellie-n-chase

Ellie and Chase focused on the eats while the adults imbibed beverages.  Chase’s mom Wendy hosted this book signing for me and I can’t thank her enough.  Such a sweetheart.

suzy

A couple of other events competed for my neighbors’ attention last night, but Suzy picked hanging out with authors over more socially responsible activities.

fam

Last night’s book signing kicks off my marketing plan.  My ebook will go on sale for 99¢ Sunday.  I’ll follow that up with some advertising – a $25 or $50 investment on Facebook and maybe something on Amazon.  I expect a Kirkus review in early April, about the same time as I hope to have my book on display at the Tattered Cover.

blaine-and-doug

You might be able to find these two characters in my book.  Doug represents all Security Analysts.  Blaine is the source for some of my dialog.  He’s promised to help me launch my website, which is key to my marketing plan.  Blaine has also published several books and is guiding me on next steps.  He thinks he knows more than me, and he does; but I think I have the better cover design.

Bath Time

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Want to know how I do it?  How I run so much for an old man?  I’ll tell you how I do it.  After running long runs, which I consider to be 12 miles plus, I soak in epsom salt.  Cost about $4 a bag.  Cheap thrills.

This will be my first week to run over 50 miles as I train for the Colorado Marathon in May. I’ll be running two or three 12 mile or longer runs per week for the next ten weeks.  That’s a lot of baths, but Dr. Teal can go the distance.  I probably won’t need to buy a second bag.  Much more affordable than a massage.

I ran 12 miles today.  Taking off tomorrow to drink like Hemingway at my book signing.  Stop by for happy hour 4 to 6 at 2020.  I’ll be running 15 miles on Saturday if you want to join me out on the trail.

Book Signing @ 2020

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

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The Boulder Bookstore still has copies of my hardcover if you’re interested in attending my book signing Thursday, February 23rd.  They are shelved in the Local Authors section.  There are even some paperback editions in Longmont at Local Editions at 17th and Harvard.

book-signing

My friend Wendy has been so gracious to set this event up for me.  Some people still think writing is cool.  She emailed some people and sent out a Nextdoor invite.  I figure this blog post should capture anyone not on either communication.

2020

I’ll order some food trays and it will be a cash bar.  Happy Hour prices though.  The event time is 4 to 6, although you can stay for dinner.  They generally serve one entre but are otherwise small plates and pizza.  My neighborhood also has Mexican, Thai and BBQ.  I’ll tell you where this story came from, answer any questions, and let you know about my next book.

Amazon Reviews

03 Friday Feb 2017

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The reviews are finally starting to roll in on Amazon.  Nothing on Goodreads or Apple iBooks yet.  I think I would be happy even if they were all 3 stars.  It was nerve-racking, waiting for reviews to appear.  And just having reviews of any sort is critical to promoting further sales.

Reviews are inherently subjective, but I would give myself 4 stars.  As a debut novelist, my skills aren’t quite there yet to give myself 5 stars.  I know where the weaknesses are in the writing.  I give myself four though because I am satisfied I accomplished what few others have done, which is to convey fairly technical information on cyber attacks in a digestible fictional story.  I read a few books in the sub-genre and can tell you, no one else has done this.  I’ll add that I just discovered a book written by a German author that looks promising, but everything else merely references cyber attacks in the title, and give near zero details in the book.

Of course, this is also one of my book’s major distractions.  I broke the rules of the genre to get so technical.  I was warned.  But I wasn’t necessarily writing to sell a million copies. Like my blog, I was writing for myself.  And what myself wanted to do was to relate a computer security primer as a fictional read.  I did, based on advice from beta readers and my editor, delete thousands of words.  I also moved much of the technical narrative into dialog – that helped make it more readable.

So most of the reviews reference how technical the book is.  One review clearly phrases it as a criticism, which is totally fair.  It’s a no-no for a thriller to get so in the weeds.  I was ready for that critique though.  Very curious to see what else readers will comment on.  One of my early beta-readers said he couldn’t read it because it was so in-your-face political.  He didn’t provide examples and I have no idea what he meant.  My undergrad is in poli-sci and I feel confident I didn’t intentionally insert political commentary.  My characters had points of view, very few of them were mine.  Beyond politics, there are some easter eggs in there I’m waiting for readers to challenge.

Amazon and Goodreads allow me to comment on reviews directly online.  I have been advised by other authors to not do that.  I probably will though.  It’s review season people.  Review early and review often.

Fiction Writer

28 Saturday Jan 2017

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pan-am

Karen has begun to read my novel.  Apparently she is feeling obligated considering I dedicated it to her.  I didn’t expect her to appreciate all the technical content.  If my story weren’t fiction, it would be non-fiction.  I imagine writers are motivated for various reasons; part of my desire was to relate a computer security primer.  The technical content is rather dense in places and it’s fair to say I wrapped a story around a scientific white paper.  But that’s not what Karen is all worked up about.

The thing about writing fiction is everyone questions where the imagination comes from.  I find I’m not able to get away with saying, “I just made that up.”  Not in this house.  So I’ve developed a string of responses, depending on the question.  Like, “that really happened,  I pulled it from the news.”  Or, “I used that name because it’s generationally accurate.”  If you’re a writer in a similar position, constantly defending your actions, or your writing, please share some of your defensive responses with me.  I’m running low.

The most dangerous subject matter is of course sex.  I believe my book to be pretty tame.  In fact, writers label my style of writing on sexual content, “closed door” sex.  It’s not graphic by any means.  But that doesn’t mean Karen isn’t mad at me.  I might have included some locker room talk.  Nothing in comparison to Trump’s pussy-grabbing banter, but then I’m not a billionaire.  There is talk of Asian women, Chinese Xiaojie, and an affinity by my protagonist for uniforms in bed.  Excuse me for thinking outfit fetishes were mainstream.

Read my book and tell me if I’m weird.  Seriously, I just made all that stuff up.

Kindle Edition

22 Thursday Dec 2016

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This post details my travails at publishing an electronic book format.  Specifically the Amazon Kindle edition, because based on their marketshare, the .mobi format is all that matters.  I’ll juxtapose this dry material with photos from our Christmas vacation to Austin over the last couple of days.  These two are of the girls at the Austin Trail of Lights from last night.

ellie-with-rachel

I planned to share some of these details to help others publish an ebook.  I held off until I was fully successful.  By fully successful, I mean having a Kindle edition available at Amazon.  This took four weeks from the time my print editions were available.  My ebook was available on the Apple iBooks store immediately, although not without errors.  Apple was my first problem.  Before even describing my issues, I’ll advise you to simply pay an ebook coder to do this for you.  But if you enjoy a technical challenge, by all means, follow my errors.

magnolia-cafe

The first problem is there are virtually zero instructions for how to export your ebook.  Ingram Spark is my publisher and they provide two different files with a few instructions scattered throughout the docs.  The tips are in a narrative format rather than a checklist, so it’s easy to miss key instructions.  My book design software is Adobe InDesign, chances are it’s your’s too.  The export routine will provide multiple tabs of export options.  I got through it by reviewing YouTube videos.  The best one, because it tells you tips for the layout design as well, is this 24 minute video.  Trust me, I watched dozens.  It’s one of the few that explains the Adobe export options.  It also tells you how to rasterize your text pages.  It doesn’t say this, but making a photo out of text is a clever trick to get around font license issues.  I had those problems too.

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You only really need to publish eBooks to Apple and Amazon.  That’s where most are sold. I figured out I had issues with Apple by downloading their free sample.  Ingram Spark doesn’t do much in terms of monitoring errors from distributors.  Turns out my issue wth Amazon was that Ingram Spark lost my contract agreement.  They made me sign four, a print contract, an ebook contract, a specific ebook contract for Apple and another for Amazon – which they lost.  They offer separate contracts for Apple and Amazon because those sites have mature tools for writers to self-publish directly.  I probably should have chosen to work with them directly.  Because I didn’t, it was difficult to get Apple and Amazon to talk to me for support issues.

There’s so many things.  I’m still working out issues on my ebook with other online retailers.  Comment if you have specific questions.  These last two photos are of brunch today at Magnolia Cafe and a run around Town Lake.

 

Indie Publishing

10 Saturday Dec 2016

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For anyone interested, this is a short primer on self publishing a book.  Made shorter yet, because I undoubtedly skipped a few steps.  All I can relate though is my experience.  I equate self-publishing with acting as your own general contractor on a large home improvement project.  You can hire out any task that a traditional publisher would do for you, or you can choose to do it yourself, or some tasks you can choose to skip.  You don’t need no stinking permit.

My first step was to write a first draft.  This was more than an outline, it was a cover-to-cover story, and it made me confident that I could continue the writing and publishing process.  Near the end of my first draft, I began peppering a writer friend with questions on what my next steps should be.  The key step I missed already was that I should have been participating in a writer’s critique group, eliciting feedback on my manuscript as well as providing others my critiques.  This process not only helps to progress your story, it forms a network of contacts in the industry.  This is something I’ll do earlier on my next book.  In fact, I’m already in one group and plan to start up another.

My next key step was to attend a writer’s conference in Denver, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.  This turbo-charged my progress, providing me with invaluable information on both the industry and writing itself.  The cost was in the $500 range, so it was my first real financial commitment, but so worth it.  You can only learn so much googling information online.  There is nothing more powerful than attending sessions with real people and networking.  I  learned here that I needed business cards, which I then purchased for $15.

The business cards led me to license what would become my cover art.  I bought a graphic from Dreamstime for $15, which I later increased my usage rights for $69.  The initial license allowed me to use the graphic for my blog and websites and business cards, as well as 500,000 copies of my book.  This would have been fine but I was nervous that I didn’t fully understand the license terms and increased my digital rights to be safe.  I think many writers spend a few hundred dollars having something original created.  I believe you want your cover art well before you actually publish to use for early marketing.

Marketing should start early.  I could argue that I began to relate my efforts in my blog after my first draft was complete.  That’s something.  I still have not created a website.  I plan to over the Christmas Holidays but I did purchase a couple of URLs for about the price of my business cards.  One for my story title and another for my publishing firm.  You don’t need to establish a publishing firm but I was advised to and did it even though I wasn’t clear I understood its importance.  Turns out it is nice for other steps in the process like registering a limited liability corporation.  Also not necessary but if I make any real money it will be good for financial record keeping.  It cost $35 to register an LLC with the State of Colorado online.

Along with establishing a business entity, you should register with the IRS for an EIN, an employee identification number that is the business equivalent of a social security number.  This isn’t necessary either but again is wise.  The EIN, LLC and publishing firm were all good to have for when I opened up a checking account at the bank.  With these things in hand, I was able to register an account with a publisher.  I went with Ingram Spark.  Their role is essentially a distributor.  You could register directly with Amazon or Apple iBooks.  You will want these financial items in any case as you’ll need to setup an electronic bank transfer for your expenses and royalties with these publisher/distributors.

I took care of these business tasks while my book was with an editor for three or four weeks.  This included spending another $100 plus on ISBN codes.  As an indie publisher, I didn’t need to hire an editor.  I already had my second draft by this time and I was gaining confidence that it was readable.  I am so glad I hired an editor.  My third draft, based on her suggestions, is a thousand times better.  This cost me $800, which was very reasonable for my number of pages.  I could have hired additional editing services, like someone to check for typos or someone to design my cover and book layout before publishing.  I had help from friends on correcting typos.

Sort of wish I’d have paid what is called a book coder to design my book layout.  Might have cost me a few hundred dollars, but I still had to spend money buying a copy of Adobe InDesign.  I’m actually subscribing to an online version for $29 per month.  Having to learn how to use this software was harder than I anticipated.  The really difficult part is not knowing the format expected by publishers.  The print versions were straightforward but designing the eBook took me a full week to get right.  Actually two weeks if I count the time it took to fix an issue I discovered after reading the iBooks sample.  I could write another blog on just that process.  I probably will.  Ping me if you have questions on self-publishing.  Happy to share my experience.

Published Online

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Novel

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The book is starting to show up in various online venues.  I’m really disappointed in Amazon because the book is creeping onto their system so slowly.  They do offer the hardcover but just now finally added the price.  Amazon doesn’t show my cover image yet, Apple and B&N show it.  Few of the venues offer the ebook yet which is ironic.  I’m told full launch could take a week or two.  Amazon added a couple dollars to the price I set for the paperback – which I suspect they will keep.  If you want to buy this at a bookstore, until it is stocked, which might be never, you will need to ask them to order it.  They should have it in their catalogues.  These links should take you to the respective sites.

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Hardcover

Apple iBooks ebook at $11.99 standard selling price

Barnes & Noble paperback at $11.49 best deal

My favor to ask of anyone who reads this is to please submit a review online.  That’s the biggest thing that will help sell the book.  Assuming it’s positive.  And really, if the review is somewhere in between, but helpful to other readers in terms of being descriptive, that’s great too.  I sort of think bad reviews are helpful too in that it will steer the book to the right audience.  Receiving reviews will be an interesting process.

One of the more complicated aspects to writing a book is taking criticism. Maybe not taking it so much; after working decades in corporate America, I have pretty thick skin. But knowing how to take that criticism and do something constructive with it is an art form. I can structure my critique groups into three categories. The friends and family I submitted my first draft to. A critique group. And my editor.

Let me start out by apologizing to my friends and family for sending them something so rough it probably was not readable. I was advised not to use friends and family because they wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings by commenting. That’s probably true. Most never gave me feedback. Could be they were too busy to read it but more likely they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. A few were less sensitive. A friend suggested to me that anyone who reads probably at some point thinks they want to write a book. I agree with that. I suspect my friends who took the trouble to provide feedback did so because they enjoyed being part of the writing process. I was actually counting on that.

Then there was my critique group. The mistake I made with this group was I started too late. You should begin with a critique group as you start writing in order to get instant and constant feedback. But I didn’t know what critique groups were until I’d already completed my first draft, and didn’t join one until I had my second draft.

Then there was my editor. Awesome feedback from her. Hours if not days and weeks worth of suggestions and corrections and rewrites. That sums up my three sources of criticism. The art form is in what to do with criticism.

Being my first book, I’d have done well to simply do what everyone told me. The feedback from friends and family was generally safe stuff that wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Make it less technical. Fix glaring errors. I did all that.

The feedback from my critique group tended to be genre specific and basic rules of writing. The genre stuff was to keep my story moving. Delete anything extraneous. Delete commentary that doesn’t deal directly with the story. I mostly ignored that. And this is where the art comes in. This is where I took risks because as a new writer, what do I know? I was advised by yet another writer to take everything with a grain of salt and make my own decisions on what to change and what to keep. I did.

I struggled much more with my editor’s critiques than with my critique group. She read half the book before responding to me so she had more context behind her than my peers who would only read ten pages at a time. And she’s just good at what she does. I probably accepted 90% of her suggestions.

I’m more than a little nervous waiting to read reviews on my book. Worse thing would be to not have any reviews. My expectation though is to have a little of everything. Good reviews will be awesome, they’ll help sell the book. Otherwise they won’t be nearly as interesting as bad reviews. I’ll totally discount the trolling, but most bad reviews will be constructive to an extent. And I’ll have to consider them just as I did with the criticism I received while writing my three drafts. I’ll have to decide what I want to accept and what to discard. Ironically, some negative criticism might actually flatter me. Readers might think I’m writing my personal position, but if it was really only a specific character’s point of view, I’ll accept that as good writing.