THE EXCITING JOURNEY OF Writing
a Fictional Book
"IT'S A LUXURY BEING A WRITER,
BECAUSE ALL YOU EVER THINK ABOUT IS LIFE."
AMY TAN
BECAUSE ALL YOU EVER THINK ABOUT IS LIFE."
AMY TAN
On Sale- for Free
7/5/2016
Starting tomorrow, July 6th and running through July 13th, 1 week, My DIARY My LOVE will be available for free in iTunes, Nook, Kobo, and Smashword. On Amazon Kindle it is .99 cents, and that is because unless we gave Amazon a 90 day exclusive this is the lowest price we may offer on that platform. (Corporate America!) That small amount of negativity is completely overshadowed by the fact that ebook self publishing has allowed hundreds or maybe thousands of very good authors, from around the world, the ability to express themselves. Is it easy to write a book, self publish a book, and then market that book? Absolutely not! By time you finish reading this blog the odds are very good that at least 10-20 new books have been uploaded into one or more of the publishing platforms. Why do it? I'll get into that another time. Right now, our book is launched, it is free for a week, and the next book will be out September 15th. If you go to the tab, on my website, that says "writing" and push any of the platform buttons, (iTunes, nook, Kobo, Kindle), they will take you right to their sites and you my download the book. Thank you, as always, for visiting the site, Sincerely, Robert Stephen Where does one begin to talk about self-publishing? As I have traversed this part of the journey I equate it to walking into the forest and coming to a fork in the road, with a number of sign posts and no other information. I like to do my research when I begin a project. However, worrying about self-publishing before writing the first book is the same as buying a $1,000 pre-paid gas card, not owning a car, and not knowing how to drive.
So I wrote the book and now came the research. We writer's seem to be a bitter group of people, with numerous opinions. WOW! I found articles on "Why I Won't Publish With Kindle," followed by "Why I Only Publish With Kindle." "I'm Leaving Smashwords," I Love Smashwords." "Use an Aggregator," "Too Hell With the Aggregator." After reading numerous articles about self publishing, I would be better off taking up art restoration of the Masters. One of the easiest steps was Calibre, a free download, which allows me to convert word documents into several other formats such as Mobi-Kindle or epub-ibooks and Kobo. https://calibre-ebook.com/ (I found it to be a great tool.) KINDLE- Was by far, the easiest to upload and work with, EXCEPT, KDP. KDP signs you up to an exclusive agreement with Kindle for 90 day intervals. It's good if you want to give them the exclusive. They control in excess of 75% of the marketplace, and it is good for delving into the self publishing if one is intimidated by the process. I admit it here, I am a control freak, and wanted to know about all the different platforms which are available. When starting the process with Kindle, there is a box that can be checked that allows the writer to decline KDP, but be warned, you're on your own. Marketing is up to you, and there are no free books to give away. That being said, after we uploaded to Kindle, onward and upward. The next was B&N Nook, no problem. Uploaded, and a few days later it was up and published. Next was Kobo, and here we have a glitch. https://www.kobo.com/writinglife Followed there instructions, and it says that the book is in the process of publishing, but that is where we come to the mystery. At the writing of this entry, Kobo is indicating that it is still uploading the book for the last 5 days, which is unusual. I have contacted Kobo twice, and they have not responded to either of my emails. Unlike Kindle, or B&N, they are questionable at best. ibooks is without a doubt, the most thorough as far as verifying all of your uploaded personal information, and is also very easy EXCEPT you need to own an Apple Laptop 10.10 or better. If not they will direct you down the road to an aggregator. Enter stage left, Smashwords. They have over a 100 page "HOW TO" but for the hell of it, we skipped it, easily registered, uploaded the book, only to have an email come back that basically says, "Congrats you uploaded the book incorrectly," and redirected us to the necessary areas for correction. I will continue to keep this part of the journey updated as we meet the necessary requirements for each. My general opinion is that with patience, I control my outcome. Frustrating, sure at times it is, but another part of this process. I will not be intimidated into believing I have no control. I never intended to write anything that would seem political, because this blog was about writing a novel. However, sometimes we cannot help ourselves, and this happens to be one of those times. The past weekend, another horrific and tragic shooting, at a nightclub, happened in Florida. Immediately, we have a government who is too busy playing politics and pandering to private interest groups, rather than working together in an attempt to solving a problem. They will continue to scream and yell, until sadly, some other tragic event will replace this one, and soon it will all be forgotten, but not by the families of the victims. They will never forget, nor should they. However, in my opinion, with all of that being said, unless a solution is being worked out as I write this, then all of the rhetoric above pales in comparison to what I found on line. I saw this photograph of a coffee mug that is being sold through Walmart. Look at it briefly, what logo do you think you see, then look at it more closely. Was it sanctioned, is it copyright infringement, are both companies this insensitive? What do you think, tasteless, no big deal, or what? If for some reason you are unable to see it the logo is not from a famous coffee company, it says "I 'heart' guns" At the bottom is says coffee. In the middle it has a woman holding two guns, one in each hand.
Does Walmart care, does the coffee company? Should they not have a social conscience? It just feels as though the world is going insane! WHY DID I WRITE A BOOK
7/2/2016
Throughout several of my posts, I elude to the fact that for one reason or another over the years I pushed myself to fail. I convinced myself that I could not write, until one day, several months ago, I stopped saying, "I can't" and said, "I could." When it was finished, and I published last week, I began telling people of the accomplishment, and I found out I was not alone.
I was amazed at the number of people who said, "I want to write, I have a great story!" Now I ask, "Then why don't you sit down and write?." Their reply is usually, "Oh no, I don't think that I'm good enough, or who would read it?" On and on they would talk and give me several reasons why they could not do it, and not one person gave me a reason why they could. That was my problem, too many excuses on why I could not, and not enough of why I could and should. I had to ask myself, is that the main difference between the masses of people who go through life, only to realize that all they have done for themselves is exist? Writers, no matter what caliber, are a special enclave of people. Each one an individual unto himself or herself, and each one is a doer. However, the higher one reaches, the thinner the village becomes. I am no more than one in a million who has finally accepted the gift that we have bestowed on ourselves. Has it been easy to this point, absolutely not, but that is just it! It is not meant to be easy, and for many of us, after completing the first book, the big question is, would we want to start all over again, and create another story? Granted, my first book was a challenge, but it is the second, third, and forth that I will begin to really know what caliber of writer I have become. As for an audience, I am not going to please everybody, for that matter, I might not please anybody, I just don't know. I will learn from my critics, and appreciate their honesty. I come back to the title of this post, "Why Did I Write a Book?" My answer, "I owed it to myself, because I wasted too many years saying that I couldn't!" Roger Hillstein, the lead character in My DIARY My LOVE began out of a silly conversation. Nikkole and I were talking actually, I was talking, and she was just making fun of what I was saying. I said to her, tongue-in-cheek, that a younger woman is far more understanding than an older woman is. Nikkole, of course, looked at me and in a sarcastic tone replied, “Sure they are, whatever you want to believe.”
I continued to drone on and said, “In a May-December relationship, not all young women are after money, some young women are very understanding, and are there when a man needs someone to talk to!” Our conversation went on for several minutes, with both of us attempting to be the “straight man” in our banter. Soon, the idea was born. The premise built upon the idea of a man, Roger, who has worked his whole life, being just that naive about life socially? Is it possible? He meets a woman, Stephanie and she takes him for a ride. Nothing new, many stories have been written with the same idea. We started writing and Stephanie did not disappoint us, but we began feeling sorry for Roger. Then we said, “Who cares, it’s a book, of course he can be that green.” We moved forward and created Stephanie, who at first, was going to be a very experienced “gold digger.” The combination was intriguing, but soon Stephanie’s character became rather boring. Been there, done that. We were 40 pages into the story, approximately 12,000 words, when we decided to trash a major part of the beginning, and start all over. We changed Stephanie’s persona, and as the story progressed, Stephanie became the main character. She became a dynamic individual, who was not only worldly, but also lived life according to Stephanie’s rules. As the story unfolded, Roger soon discovers that the woman, who has come into his life, is no ordinary woman, and with her mentoring, discovers that he is no ordinary man. With Stephanie’s new, interesting, character, the story continued to evolve, and we were excited to see where the characters would lead us. Personally, they did not disappoint. |
AuthorRobert Stephen. Archives
September 2018
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