Well, it seems everyone is changing and charging. I’m wondering when it will stop. At this rate, it is going to be too expensive to be an Independent Author.
I signed into LULU this afternoon and saw the statement below on a closable flag across my computer screen.
Beginning October 1st 2021, a small Fulfilment Fee will be added to offset the rising costs of packaging your books in a durable and safe and responsible manner.
I thought all the money we already paid included postage and packaging…
Also, in case you didn’t know or had forgotten, LULU introduce a price for making an ebook. Each new ebook will incur this cost.
If anyone else knows of any changes, please put it in comments.
Cac The Proofreader back with another WORD WAR! Today, LESS versus FEWER is on tap. And it can be quite tricky.
LESS basically means not as much and is used when you cannot count the items you’re referring to; in other words, if it’s a singular “mass” noun. Ask yourself if the noun in your intended sentence will be working with a countable or uncountable noun. Examples are: water, space, love. “I’ve been drinking less water than I used to.” Not an item you can count. “There’s less space in this closet.” Again, uncountable.
FEWER means not as many and is your choice when the noun IS countable. Example: “As my dog ages, she has fewer accidents.” “I make fewer grammatical mistakes since my training.” Both of these are countable noun items.
A great example for incorporating both words is: “If fewer people used disposable water bottles, there would be less plastic in landfills.” Countable and uncountable, respectively.
BIG TIP: A good way to test that a noun is truly uncountable is to try making a plural out of it, i.e., “I’d like fewer milks, please.” Doesn’t make sense, does it? Milk is not countable.
I hope you learned something today and that these make for smoother, stay-in-the-zone writing!
Send me your WORD WAR. I’d love to dissect it for all the world to benefit from.
We are calling for submissions from writers worldwide. This year we are producing three Anthologies.
Ghostly Romance, Ghostly Rites and one for children aged 10 to adult Ghostly Rites Youth. The Children’s story must be scary but not over the top…Every child loves Goosebump Stories so let’s see what you all have to share.
These Anthologies are for Marketing you and your fellow authors. The eBooks will be FREE and the Paperbacks close to cost, depending on the distribution site.
Calling All Ghostly Rites Authors
Here is your schedule of submissions for 2020. Details of how to submit coming soon.
Each submission will cost USD $10 per 7,000 words. Your manuscript MUST contain your author name and story title on the first page.
Ghostly Youth – Volume 1 This is a new publication aimed for the young and young at heart, aged from 1 to adult. Please remember content must be suitable for children Submissions due: 1st May 2020 Publication: Mid-June 2020
Ghostly Romance – Volume 2 Following on for our august 2019 edition, Ghostly Romance Anthology containing ghostly tales that will tug on the heartstrings and make you check under the bed… Submissions due: 1st July 2020 Publication: Mid-August 2020
Ghostly Rites 2020 Our flagship publication, to make the hair on your neck stand on end and make your skin crawl. The scarier the better! Submissions due: 1st September 2020 Publication: October 31 2020
Sometimes a little competition is what you need to get back in the writing game. What better way to do that than to enter writing contests and see how well you’ll do?
As writers, we’re often plagued with a whole lot of self-doubt which can have a negative effect on our mental health and our writing. Add to that, the fact that we are prone to losing traction when we don’t have a specific deadline in sight. What’s great about writing contests is that they give you a chance to ignite your creativity and get back into the swing of writing.
On that note, we’ve compiled a list of writing contests to help get you started!
I was requested to write a post about Inkitt by one of my followers. Chloe King has not been there long and hasn’t updated her stories in a while. From what I can see. Mind she has released another Novella for everyone to enjoy. Here is the link and NOW BACK TO INKITT
INKITT is well set out. It has a lot of Authors from countries where English is a second language, meaning as a reader, you can struggle at times to work out what they mean. There are also those who don’t do their research.
When you start a new book you have to fill in all the different areas to be approved. It takes at least 24 hrs to get approval. You will also need some kind of book cover like you do on WATTPAD.
What I do like is their structure for REVIEWING a book. It is great. It gives you four areas to look at and comment on. You are not allowed negative commenting, though you can (if you’re a good reviewer) assess something in a positive way to help a writer build their story. Most will be grateful for your input. However, some won’t.
If you are a writer on there and swap a review, please be careful. If you give them a bad review then they will give you a worse one. How do I know…Well, I read Chloe’s reviews and she told me about one person who in fact didn’t listen. Mind it is their loss. This other writer deleted the REVIEW Chloe did for her book (YES YOU CAN DO THIS ON INKITT) I personally think this should be stopped. How can an author learn or readers get an indication of how good or bad a writer is if they can delete. On top of this, some writers get five-star reviews and they really shouldn’t. WINCES.
A lot of the stories are messy and need editing, however, you can find good reads too. Building up a following is hard unless you update frequently and share in the review blog area and on your social media. Chloe doesn’t enter any competitions. Mainly due to hearing and reading things about INKITT which don’t seem right re – publishing with them and how they score stories, etc.
If anyone wants a picture of how to set up a story on INKITT let me know and I’ll write a post about it.
Overall INKITT is ok. Different from WATTPAD in different ways.
As a Independent Publisher which is a Limited Company, I always tell my author friends and clients to make sure they don’t pay first and to look at prices…some are horrendous. A deposit is one thing, full payment…Hell no… they tend to be Vanity Publishers. Needless to say if you have a set of standards for one then you need them for authors as well. Not all authors are great to work with. I’ve had some damn right nasty ones who nearly made me give up helping others.
It does cost to get published. It doesn’t matter if you go trad or Indie. Traditional take part of your royality for the life of the book, which could be millions and they will only publish you if they can make a profit from you work. Also remember they have control of your manuscript – you don’t! Indie Publishers get paid a one off amount so if you make millions you don’t need to pay them anymore.
What I would like to see is a list of or group of Indie Publishers who assist each other like Indie Authors do. They must have at least five 5 star reviews/testimonials …remember we all have to start somewhere.
In fact, I’ll start a group on Facebook of LLC companies with 5 or more positive testimonials. Let people know and we will build this together for everyone to look at and use.
What information I will need.
Professionalism
Proof of LLC Proof of your reviews and testimonials. Genre you work with Royalty Share – if you work that way Deposit Amount – if needed
Contact details
Companies without Reviews/Testimonals will be added as pending when they start up.
WE all know I don’t like Createspace anymore due to their Customer Service debacle and how they treat their customers. They are so not with it. I’m glad to get out now rather than when they close their business down for good…To me this is what it looks like and I’ll tell you why.
I have worked in several businesses which have closed down and slowly but surely they get rid of things they no longer need. If your observant enough…you notice and it makes you wonder. Are they closing? Is this why customer service is so bad? Do they really want to work with Indie Authors or are they just money hungry and we’re not bring in enough profit for them anymore?
If I follow my instinct the first thing Amazon rolled out was print on KDP! Why did they do this? Createspace was excellent at the time and I loved using their website. From authors around the world I heard scathing comments about KDP Print and how bad they were, rejecting book covers continually. One author had her cover rejected 37 times where as on Createspace it was accepted straight away. I decided to stay away. I hated the thought of even trying to use them at that stage.
Then suddenly I was having issues with Createspace. Their customer service was all over the place, moving from one to another person, not reading emails, getting things wrong…totally incompetent. In my company they would be reprimanded and given training to upgrade their skill set. Then it was the turn of the ordering area of Createspace. Books disappearing, Tracking number telling authors their books were going somewhere else. They couldn’t even tell the difference between the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Astounding mess. Though this one incident had a happy conclusion in the end nearly five months later. I know for a fact this author won’t order though Createspace again.
Next it ws Copyright Permission. Their policies stated you’re only allowed to upload documents you own or have copyright permission of. Yes there have been a hell of a lot of stolen manuscripts out there, however there are many ways this is done and most have nothing to do with Createspace. So here they are demanding proof…Something new they’d never asked before. If you know your business law (mine was New Zealand) then you can’t share private and confidential information with another party without permission from the person it involves. I never have and never will share contracts, emails or anything else without permission. Saying no to Createspace turned them into …well i’m not sure what. On top of this the book was published as an ebook and is for sale on Amazon, but they wouldn’t publish the paperback. Guess who went to LULU. They’ve been excellent by the way.
What else can happen? Oh yes PERMA FREE. Due to all the fuss I stopped uploading to KDP and started to use Pronoun – who we all know closed this month. With Pronoun you could make a book FREE and no problems. I wish they hadn’t closed. Then Draft to Digital had distribution rights to send to Amazon, however, in their deal you couldn’t mark a book as FREE. So I did the usual request and the second time they said no because it wasn’t uploaded to KDP only distributed. (They accepted the first…meaning they can’t even get this right) They told me to contact D2D and get them to send a request. I’m sure this is more work which D2D don’t really want! Much to my joy they did so but, I can still see a price on it on Amazon. Though this could be me having a New Zealand Account.
Now the reason for this blog. Createspace are no longer going to be offering professional services to authors. They don’t wish to work one on one with you. No Book Cover Design, No Marketing and No Editing (I didn’t know they offered Editing.) This info comes from a friend I sometimes work with. The original blog was from Book Baby who like me offer all the service to Indie Authors. They found the information in a newspaper in the USA/
ARE THEY CLOSING DOWN? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
If you do need services for Editing, Cover Design, Formatting and some Marketing (I’m looking at taking a course in Marketing this year) Then please consider using Plaisted Publishing House. We love working one on one.
Contractions in fictional dialogue….Where the heck has it gone? I read ebooks and cringe at the long-winded speech patterns. It’s horrible. I do wish writers used them more. Ok so if you’re writing formal text you don’t need to use contractions…In fiction it’s another matter, especially in speech. You may not learn to use them at school or college, however you do need to listen to how you speak, this will give you an idea on how many contractions you use in a sentence and on a daily basis. We all do it so why don’t we use them in our creative writing.
I for one – write how I speak. I know it isn’t for everyone. I know editors can be picky about the over use of them, however use them, we must!
I still see a lot of bad formatting, some of which means I can’t or won’t read the book at all be them free or bought. The thing that is REALLY getting me at present is CONTRACTIONS in fictional dialogue.
DO YOU REALLY SPEAK WITHOUT THEM? WHY DON’T WRITERS USE MORE OF THEM?
Yep you got it, it drives me nuts. I know I don’t talk without using contractions. In fact I use them in most of my speech. My brain also automatically changes most words which could be contractions into what my brain thinks they should be.
I HAVE HAD – I’ve had
WE WILL GO TO – We’ll go to
I WILL TAKE MORGAN TO – I’ll take Morgan to
The latest one in New Zealand is Yeah nah….meaning Yes I know…rather than Yes – No…It seems to have gotten lost in translation. I hate hearing this as much as I dislike hearing people swear with every other word. Needless to say you don’t have to be long-winded with words to get your speech correct.
Honestly, I know many don’t like to use contractions, however not to use them at all, especially in speech is a ruddy nightmare.
I DO NOT SPEAK LIKE THIS. I WILL ALWAYS SHORTEN MY WORDS WHERE I CAN. I HAVE SO MANY DIFFERENT CHOICES. CAN NOT YOU SEE WHY THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT.
Doesn’t that sound horrible?
I don’t speak like this. I’ll always shorten my words where I can. I’ve so many different choices. Can’t you see why they are so important!
MUCH BETTER...even if it isn’t brilliant. Glad it was only a sample. Of course this is only my opinion as well. It’s not for everyone.
Spotlight Author this month is former paratrooper Mark McQuillen, who now writes fantasy fiction. There are also educational information about Book Launches, Comic Cons and how to use them to your advantage. Enjoy
Yeah I know we’ve all heard this one before! However, it is strange we all still loose full or parts of manuscripts. Yes I have done it as well. This time I was ready to publish, book cover done and do you think I could find the whole manuscript…NO
DAMN! I am so mad with myself. I know why this happened, I even know when it happened. Right at the end of January 2016 when I accidentally wiped my computer. Yeah, I hear you all saying “DUH.” Problem is I didn’t realise until it was to late. How can this be, you may ask. It’s called Windows 10 and my computer is a Lenovo. That’s my excuse anyway. In reality it is technology which caught me out.
In the past when you have needed to go back to factory settings or find a spot to jump to in time on you computer – you did just that. I’m not sure if it is just Lenovo or if Windows 10 contributed as well. Anyway it’s not called Factory Settings anymore…NO, aha…not this time. So yes I accidentally wiped everything. HOWEVER I’M GOOD...Well so I thought.
I save my manuscripts in dropbox, onedrive some in google drive, send them to friends via email and chat or just email them to myself. YAY ME. Off I went asking all my wonderful friends to send me copies back. Which of course they did. The rest of my stuff was on back up Memory Sticks or in emails. So very happy. Well that is until the day before Valentine’s Day
Opening a manuscript and found the last part missing – DAMN. It was an older version. Never mind i’ll have to re-write it again and publish later. BAH HUMBUG. Then I noted another was missing the last bit too, not that it worried me since this particular novel hasn’t been finished yet. Today!!
Today I found my latest work to be published…and nearly cried. SOB. Not only was the majority of it missing, all I had was a short story instead of a novella and it was one of the few books…well never mind. It was a good story and I doubt I can re-write it as good as it was.
So what happened to them. It’s simple I never saved a FINAL COPY of the manuscript on drop box, onedrive or google drive. No copies on my memory stick or emails. So here I am sending out a warning to you all.
PLEASE SAVE YOUR FINAL MANUSCRIPT ON A MEMORY STICK/FLASH DRIVE OR ON A CLOUD BASED SITE
