If you’re reading this you’re probably an author, or at least you want to be. I bet you have wondered how you get there.

How do you go from wanting to be a writer to being an author with your name on the cover of a book?

How do you get to wear one of those t-shirts that says “Ask Me About My Book – Published Author.”  Don’t you need to know what you’re doing? Don’t you need a college education? Don’t you need a history of writing projects?

In my journey, I found that admitting and believing that I was a “real” writer was the first hurdle to overcome on this road to authorship that I unexpectedly found myself traveling on in life.

I mean, I didn’t have a fancy university diploma framed on my wall.

I was a blogger, and I’d only been doing that for several years. The rest of my life before that I wrote in journals now and then when I found it helpful. That was my experience and knowledge. The one thing I kept hearing all the time from others was that I had talent.

“You’re a good writer. You should write a book”, they said. 

Though half the time I wasn’t sure I believed them. After all, what did they know?! They weren’t a professional anything anymore than I was. Even after I had two book projects in progress and a couple of blogs, getting great response, I still didn’t think of myself as a real writer.

There were a couple of things that helped me to go from this state of mind to finally saying to other people “I am a writer.” And, as of December 1^st, 2014 I can finally say to others “I am a published author.”

The first thing was reading a book called “If You Can Talk You Can Write” by Joel Saltzman. I learned from this book to stop worrying about the “proper” way to say things, or editing as I went along, and to just write down the words that were in my head.

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

07:42

I think this question has been asked to every author at every book signing, literary event and convention since time immemorial.

But it is an honest inquiry.

Why do authors choose to do this? What was the first spark? 

Personally, I started writing when I was a kid. I remember going to the movies and left wondering what happened after the lights came up. Did they all really live happily ever after? What about the bad guys? Did the surviving ones see the error of their ways?

So, I dabbled, keeping a handful of journals just to get the thoughts onto paper. Wrote on my high school newspaper, working in movie reviews and opinions primarily.

But it wasn’t until writing a satirical column about the mind controlling powers of Cabbage Patch Kids that I found my true calling in the world of fiction. (Sadly, the local newspaper did not print the article, but the editor gave me some very good advice: Don’t stop.)

I didn’t stop, but I did put my writing on hold. It wasn’t until I read the final book in a somewhat successful YA series, which will remain nameless, and after suppressing the urge to throw said book across the room for crappy story telling and ridiculous character choices, I decided to write my own story.

We read something that sparks our interest and decide, “You know? I don’t think ‘insert-character-name-here’ should’ve gone into that room. If I were writing their story…”

And so it begins. But creating a unique perspective on a well-known concept is the true test of any aspiring wordsmith. We all know about good v. evil, we know the bad guys will get their comeuppance or mend their ways.

But there has to be more than that. It’s in the shades of good and evil that we find the truly interesting characters. Our heroes need vices and our villains must have some redeeming qualities.

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

03:02

A sage piece of advice for writers who seek commercial success is to choose and know your market before you start to write.

Decide who is going to read your work and know what their expectations are. Then write to the target market.

Write to fulfill those expectations.

This includes understanding the requirements of different categories or genres.

The expectations of romance readers about how a story should be told are different from those of readers of thrillers or fantasies.

I didn’t choose the fantasy genre of The Bewildering Adventures of King Bewilliam series; it chose me. Though The Lost King is about present-day issues like divorce and career displacement, the story wanted to be told in a once-upon-a-time fashion.

Thus the setting is an imagined land, the story takes place in the Middle Ages and it includes mythical creatures like dragons.

The series was inspired by a friend’s real life crisis, a complete personal and professional derailment. I wanted to see if I could make that come out happily ever after.

That turned out to be harder than I thought. Three books later I’m still at it.

Even the strongest among us doesn’t bounce right back from such stunning losses. While King Bewilliam, the series hero, scored some successes, he continues to struggle to reclaim his life which led to The King’s Ransom, the latest release, The King’s Redress, and my current work-in-progress, The Redoubt.

To tell his story I’ve learned more than I ever thought I would about ancient times and chimerical creatures and have made friends among other writers of fantasy and paranormal fiction. 

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

02:37

Writing! What can be said about it? Are there enough words out there to describe the feeling?

I wrote the ”beginning” of a series when I was 14. I was clueless on how to proceed, lacking the ability to take it further and somehow, in the back of my mind, I always knew one day, I’d publish this book!

At the tender age of 7, I visited a castle in my mom’s home town in Italy. The ever lasting impression that had plagued me then, and still does to this day, had compelled me to start writing in my teens.

I fell in love with knights, history, fictional characters I gave life to, and a story line so descriptive and tantalizing, that I knew I had to give the world this story.

In my later years, that story was lost due to moving from home to home, but the basic story line had always stuck with me in the back of my mind, like riding a bicycle for the first time and letting that hobby go for some time, then taking it up again, although (rusty) we still never forget, as it slowly comes back to us.

Many years later, after watching series, documentaries, history channels and their shows, an idea so brave and scary came to mind!

I thought, well, ” it’s time to bring your story back, Lory!” and make it count.

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

07:59

For those of us who have already self published a book or three, we had our reasons for doing so.

For those of you thinking of going this route, you may have the same reasons: you don’t want to wait that long to hear back from a traditional publisher, you don’t know where to begin, or if you’re like me, you aren’t happy with your current publisher.

There are several reasons why you may to go the self publishing route, and whatever your reason, it’s worth it in the end.

Once you’ve decided self publishing is the right thing for you, you may wonder where to start.

Researching different outlets for self publishing is definitely something you should consider. There are several places you can use, like CreateSpace, Lulu, Kindle Direct, and PubIt (Barnes and Noble).

Essentially, you can use one or all of them, but in my experiences, I use Lulu because you have the option to publish eBooks as well as hard copies to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. EBooks can be published to iBooks, as well.

You set the prices and control what content goes where and all your sales can be monitored from one place.

Lulu also has several different services you can choose from that will help you with editing, cover design, interior layout, and marketing. Putting your title on the site is completely free and is free to publish.

They only take a small percent from each sake to cover their costs of printing and distributing.

If you want to order a copy for yourself you have the option of paying the printing cost, which is often times less than half of the cost of what you can usually sell for. (One of my titles lists for around ten dollars and I can buy a copy for about four dollars.)

This option is good if you decide to do a book signing or sell them your self. Keep in mind you won’t be paid for these kinds of sales because you’re getting the book at cost.

I know there are other self publishing companies out there, but Lulu is the one that has worked the best for me.

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

02:56

As long as I have been able to write, I have always imagined becoming a famous writer one day.

I fell in love with the written word and in the places that the stories took me.

I published my first work in a literary magazine while in high school, but it wasn’t until 2009 that I finally held my first book in my hands.

My books are of a Spiritual nature and I believe were inspired by God.

I knew that I wasn’t writing in order to get rich; I just wanted to get my message out there in hopes of helping or inspiring someone else.

When it came time to actually publish my book, I searched different avenues in order to get it done.

Most sites that I went to wanted to charge me large fees, which I didn’t have at that time.

I even found sites that wanted me to sign the rights of my work over to them!

Finally, I discovered createspace.com. It took a few tries to get my book just the way I wanted it to look inside and out.

I had to edit it myself, however, and that was the hardest part.

We all know that, when we read our work, our minds usually see the words the way we think it is and not how it actually is. It is always good to have someone else edit your work for grammatical errors before you self-publish.

Another big thing is that you will have to do your own promoting if your intention is to sell your books for profit. One more thing I like about createspace.com is that you can set your own price and it breaks the price down to show you exactly where the money goes and how much your profit will be. I also enjoy the fact that I can order as many copies of my books as I choose to at a much lower rate.

Read the whole article here.

Publishing Addict

06:56

The hardest part is putting all the information in the order you want as a manuscript.

I think you will probably want to make a book with photographs 8.5 x 11 inches size. Novels are usually printed in 6 x 9 inch size.

If you create your manuscript in the actual size you want the book, it is easier to proofread and edit it as you go along. It won’t stop you from making mistakes, but it helps.

Start with a blank page as they print the book exactly as you send it in.

I then put a sketch I made of my old cabin as the next page with copyright date, Publisher (my self or whatever you want to name your new publishing company) and I usually place a quote of some sort.

The 3^rd page has the technical stuff, photo credits, thanks to proof readers, all rights reserved, liable disclaimer (for my autobiography, posted here as an example) “This is my point of view of my life, told from my perspective and totally my own opinion.

It is not politically correct, nor is it prettied up to suit anyone else. If we learn from our mistakes, I should be just about the smartest person on earth. Obviously that isn’t true.”

Then I list other books I have written which may take another page if you have been busy or want to give a wonderful dedication.

If you are going to separate your book into sections, you will want to add a Table of Contents here and possibly an index at the end of the book.

Finally, you are ready to start the actual book itself. Make a title page, using larger font usually. Make your font an easy to read font.

Garamond is a good font as it is compatible with the publishing system we are using.

Then, usually the start of each chapter is a set number of spaces down the page from the top, I usually center and bold the font for chapters.

Chapter 1

Try to be as consistent as possible so the book looks fairly professional. Each chapter should start at the same distance down on the page.

If you are adding photographs, place them either evenly throughout with their descriptions, if you wish or make a separate section of only photographs.

Personally, for the books I made each Grandchild for Christmas, I interspersed family history with photographs as I started having photos to illustrate the family members being told about. I usually do each chapter as a separate file while working on it, unless it is a novel, then I just write. Once I am mostly done, I copy/paste the whole thing together.

Once you have the body of the book fleshed out and are fairly happy with it, save the entire book as one file. Then make another copy by saving as a PDF file which no one else can edit or change and is the easiest one to upload to Createspace for publishing.

You can join Createspace at any time, it is free. It’s an affiliate of Amazon. When you sign up, it will ask what your new project is, book, video, cd, whatever. You may choose to make it a combo Kindle and paperback book.

You can skip making a choice about whether to buy an ISBN number or using one of their free ones until later in the process.

There is the option of using a free ISBN number from them, but that gives them partial control over your book which I don’t like, so I choose to buy the ISBN number used on each novel and cookbook. Those are $99 each and other than paying for whatever books you want to purchase for yourself of the books you make, that is the only expense to do this, it is print on demand.

My personal choice is not to publish on Kindle. It was a personal decision after reading the entire Agreement.

Living where I do, with no phone and usually try to only come to town once a month, less if possible, it was impossible to really find a regular publisher willing to work with me.

Createspace gives me total control of my project and it is ready and on the market just as fast as I want to work at it and get it ready.

There you go, a self publishing guide for createspace.

Take care and have fun writing,
Rosalyn

Publishing Addict

05:28