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Posts Tagged ‘publishing’

Post-Mortem

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 08 Nov 2012| Leave a Comment »

A lot went right with the release of Beneath a Wounded Sky and the completion of The Fallen Cloud Saga. Overall, I’m very pleased with the product, inside and out. Don’t kid yourself, people do judge a book by its cover…and by its font, and even by the quality of its title page. A good product, a quality product, will sell better than something that looks like it was put together by a grade-schooler.

But I did not do everything right; far from it. And there was one Big Item that I actually ignored purposefully, and it bears mentioning for any of you out there who are taking notes.

So, where can I improve for next time?

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Is Someone IN There?

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Hi Tech, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 23 Oct 2012| 4 Comments »

Yesterday (okay, very early this morning) I submitted the final content for FC books IV and V to the CreateSpace “submission review” process. As I’ve mentioned before, this process finds a lot of formatting errors such as text beyond margins, low-DPI graphics, unembedded fonts, and so forth. It’s a good review process, and it encourages the author—through feedback, easy-to-follow help guides, and forum discussions—to submit the highest quality work to achieve the highest quality product.

Up ’til now, I’ve assumed this was a mechanical review process, but after the response I got today, I’m not so sure.

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The Sliding Scale of Attention

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 22 Oct 2012| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’ve fallen down on the job, here. My excuses are many and diverse—I’m on vacation, I caught a cold, the Giants are in the NLCS—but I can still say that I’ve kept my priorities straight. I may not have posted here each weekday (my stated goal), but I did spend time every day editing my MSS for the Fallen Cloud Saga re-release. So, there’s that, anyway.

In re-editing the MSS for FC:I-FC:IV, however, I noticed two distinct patterns.

The first pattern I noticed was an increase in my cockiness as an author. This is not a good thing as it led to stupid artifice and ill-thought-out departures from established conventions. I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten over that one, as I’m now correcting all those “artistic decisions.”

The second pattern was a decrease in editorial attention. This, also, is not a good thing. Unfortunately, the two patterns exacerbate each other—the cockier I got, the less my editor cared to work with me, and vice versa. It’s a chicken-and-egg argument, determining which came first, but I also know that by the time we got to FC:IV, the publisher had decided my numbers weren’t good enough and closed the book on the series, my editor was looking for a career change, and I was the last one to know any of it.

So, what does increased editorial disinterest look like? (more…)

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Proof of Life

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 Sep 2012| 5 Comments »

We have proof!

Yesterday, Brown delivered the proof for FC:I, and once again I was reminded of just how important a hardcopy proof is. For you out there who are thinking about self-publishing a hardcopy book, always get a physical proof copy of the book.

So, how was it?

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The Devil’s Typesetter

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 20 Sep 2012| 1 Comment »

When I decided to publish the new FC books myself, I rather knew what I was getting into. Publishers, for all their flaws, do provide a lot for the writer. I’ve seen it, experienced it, and though I bitched about a lot of it at the time, I surely do miss it now.

Some of the services a publisher provides that are now on my plate: editing, copy-editing, fact-checking, cover art, and typesetting. (And this doesn’t even get into the marketing/distribution side of things.)

It’s that last one, though…typesetting. It’s a bloody mare’s nest of minutia and details. But its importance cannot be understated. I’ve done this before, but it’s always a surprise. (more…)

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Let Me Count the Words

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 18 Sep 2012| 1 Comment »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiCounting words used to be important. It also used to be arcane.

As the physically printed word goes slowly out of style, the importance of word count diminishes. When I worked as a head pressman at a small newspaper, word count was king because word count translated to column inches, and you only had so many of those in each issue. Reporters typed up their story, handed it to the typesetter who typed it into a machine the size of a van. Long strips of paper came out the far side which we then painstakingly—and absolutely literally—cut and pasted onto the page mock-up. Word count gave us an idea of how much space each article would use. But it was not a literal count of the words.

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FC Covers

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 16 Sep 2012| Leave a Comment »

Cover art is here! I’ve also decided that I won’t be going with a hardback version of these books; production costs are too high and the demand is too low. We’ll be putting these out in trade paper and in e-book formats.

Onward!

originally From the Heart of the Storm

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