Tag Archives: Writing

Annual Book Sales

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I spent more on writing fiction than I earned. No surprise. I write for Torre. This was also a very busy year at MotiveQuest where I spent extra hours upgrading software to meet demand leaving me with very little time for writing or reading. Somehow I managed to finish Dee Count for iPad and Kandy Fangs story, both projects started in 2010.

All of my stories are available for free (on blog, download, or by asking,) and I consider paid ebooks as donations (and supporting retailers) in appreciation of fiction. Find where to download my ebooks for your favorite reader on my Books page.

2011 Sales

At the beginning of the year, I announced that I would donate my 2011 ebook proceeds (as of Dec 15th) to Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP.) For transparency, here are my 2011 sales numbers for my books as of December 15, 2011.

Shadow Memories

  • Paid: 3, 1 each at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
  • Free: 28 at Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale

Raven Memory

  • Paid: 2, 1 at Amazon and 1 at Sony Reader Store

Kandy Fangs

  • Free at Smashwords: 198
  • Free at Barnes & Noble: 161
  • Free at Scribd: 3 (embedded reads + downloads)

For comparison, in 2010 I sold 7 Shadow Memories, and 4 Raven Memory ebooks plus 30 free downloads.

Donation to KIPP

On behalf of readers, I donated my proceeds from paid ebook sales (ignoring my writing expenses) plus 10 cents for every free ebook download listed above to KIPP. This works out to be $4.62 for paid ebook sales plus $39.00 in thanks for free ebook downloads for a result rounded up to $50. I matched for total of US $100 donated to KIPP.

Thanks for reading my stories.

Source Citation Fail

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While reading a technical book, I came across a footnote referencing a source citation with a Wikipedia URL. I frowned upon seeing an encyclopedia as a source. A book or article would be more useful to me. Ignoring the arguments about the quality of Wikipedia versus other encyclopedias, let’s look at problems on how this turns into a source citation failure.

It turns out the specific URL has changed, and Wikipedia redirects to a the same topic on another page. However, there is no mention of the specific point referenced by the book as someone has since updated the entry. The page also boldly states at the top that the entry “needs attention from an expert on the subject.”

The author of the book is an expert on this topic, but chooses to cite an encyclopedia entry in need of improvement, and the point in question has since been edited out. No value to the reader.

Please cite a solid source that provides more information to the reader.

Kandy Moved

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The serial continues at the new site: www.KandyFangs.com

I’m not a fan of serializing short fiction. Longer stories make more sense. Even then, many readers prefer reading at once and even better if it is in a completed ebook. The problem with hosting a long serial on a blog is navigation made even more problematic if shared with other posts. For Kandy Fangs, I solved the problem by moving her to her own place and setting up an episode index always visible on the side.

Setting up a WordPress site is so easy there is no excuse for creating a separate space for the serial. WordPress 3 even allows managing multiple blogs on one installation. Writers with technical skills can setup a better book-like experience by removing the blog completely, but let’s keep it simple. Besides, the blog features allow for bonus content. Decorate the site for the story.

Open up www.KandyFangs.com in a window to see how it works.

Instead of opening to blog posts, the site starts at the Welcome page. This gives the new reader a synopsis and information on what to expect. Once the serial is over, new readers may read all the episodes and returning readers may read new stories about Kandy. A link on the welcome page takes the new reader to the first episode.

Under the menu, you’ll find “Novella” and “Kandy” selections. Clicking one of these shows the categories in the normal reverse blog post order. This is nice for returning visitors, but not new visitors. Another option is to change the post order to start with the first. See Crooked Fang for an example.

I gave Kandy’s home a look consistent with this blog. If Kandy likes it, then my job is done.

How-To: Make Contents Links in Ebook for Smashwords

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You want a working contents page in your ebook. Readers love them. Anything that improves navigation is good. Done properly, the Smashwords Meatgrinder will produce epub and PDF with working contents page linking to your chapters or parts. Software like Adobe Digital Editions and iBooks on iPad will allow the reader to jump to chapters in your book. Below are screen shots of my novel, Raven Memory in Adobe Digital Editions and iBooks. The iBooks contents work by scrolling. In addition, iBooks reveals how many pages remain in the chapter. Note: In my first revision of Raven Memory, I used flowing text between chapters, and my recent revision (Sep 3) uses chapter headers.

Screen shot of iBooks showing chapter and page feature. Touch chapter slider to reveal chapter info.

Adobe Digital Editions Screen Shot of Raven Memory 1st revision with chapters flowing together. No formatted headers.

iBooks on iPad Screen Shot scrolling contents page

The Quick Guide to Working Contents

It’s that simple. Well, almost. The  Smashwords Meatgrinder is picky about formatting, and some issues may not be clear. Pay close attention to the entire guide. It doesn’t matter if you use Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer, the directions for creating working contents links are the same.

About Chapter Headers

Coker’s guide mentions using header formatting for your chapter headers. This is optional, but a good idea if your book is long. Using headers tells Meatgrinder to create a new xhtml page for the epub which may render as chapter breaks in software like Adobe Digital Editions and iBooks. You may end up with a few nearly blank pages with only a sentence or two. Ugly, but preferable over the alternative. Without formatted headers the text flows, but Smashwords Meatgrinder will break longer works into segments which may cause page breaks in undesirable spots when reading epub. Format headers for chapters to avoid Meatgrinder choosing breaks for you in epub conversion. This doesn’t apply to PDF or online reading.

As seen in the Adobe Digital Editions screen capture above, my first revision of Raven Memory didn’t format the chapter headers allowing flowing text. Due to 3 abrupt page breaks in the epub, I revised using header formatting. Now Adobe Digital Editions produces one nearly blank page (depending on screen size,) but looks fine in iBooks. See the screen shot below. This is better than breaking between paragraphs, and epub readers may get better in the future at pushing text so there isn’t a single line left on a page. (Dear epub reader software creators: Learn how to flow text correctly.)

Tips on formatting with linking contents for your ebook

  • Make sure the entire document has consistent formatting, paying close attention to the paragraph style name. If you use formatted chapter headers, they should also be consistent.
  • Use Styles and Formatting sheet.
  • Internal contents links work like external hyperlinks.
  • Don’t use automation. Create your contents links by hand.
  • Before uploaded to Smashwords, export to PDF and test every link.
  • After uploading, test the PDF and the epub in Adobe Digital Editions. Click every link to make sure it goes to the correct place in your document.

My How-To: Create Contents Links Formatted for Smashwords

Save your contents page for last after you have made certain your entire document is formatted correctly. Heading styles are optional, but recommended for longer works. Edit your styles sheet for your body text and header. If you name your chapters starting with “Chapter” then Meatgrinder will make things easier. In Shadow Memories, I named each as the title of the short story. Still works as long as you make internal hyperlinks. See Step 20 in Coker’s guide.

Your table of contents should list each chapter single-spaced after the license information. No page numbers. The contents entry should be the same as the matching heading.

  1. Go to each chapter heading and highlight the text.
  2. (Optional, but recommended) Set the format to header using the same or similar font. (Remember to use style sheets.)
  3. Use the Insert Bookmark feature. Name the bookmark matching the header, but without spaces.
  4. After you named all the bookmarks matched to headers, go back to the contents page. Select each entry and use your Insert Hyperlink feature, select internal hyperlink and select the matching bookmark.

In your document, test each bookmark hyperlink. If you missed one or made a mistake, correct. Then export to PDF and test the links there. If it works in a PDF, and your book is formatted properly, it will work after going through the Meatgrinder.

Questions?

Screen shot of iBooks showing chapter break produced by using a header format for Smashwords

Perspective

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From Publishers Weekly “A Bookselling Tail” from 2006 noting 2004 Bookscan data

  • 80% of books sell fewer than 99 copies
  • 96% of books sell fewer than 1,000 copies
  • Average American book sells 500 copies

According to Editorial Ass in 2008

  • Sell 7,000: “you’re a star.”
  • Sell 4,000: “strong seller.”

From Association of American Publishers on publishers.org

  • 2009 eBook annual sales up 177% overtaking audio books
  • 2009 overall book sales down 1.8%

From Bowker

  • 288,355 new traditional books in 2009
  • 764,448 new non-traditional books in 2009, up 181%
  • 45,181 new traditional fiction books in 2009, down from 53,058 in 2008

From New York Times citing Bowker 2009 data

  • Hardcover: 35% of total sales
  • Trade paperback: 35% of total sales
  • Mass market paperback: 31% of total sales
  • eBook: 2% of total sales
  • All e-commerce sites at 20% total book sales

Nearly 300,000 new books each year is tough competition. 700,000 new books in a year is a great deal of noise. In “What’s Louder than Noise?” Kristine Kathryn Rusch claims that the great American novel is now an impossibility making the point that it is now harder than ever for even established authors to get noticed. Instead of searching for the new book that will sell millions of copies, publisher should promote a thousand authors that each sell a thousand. Writing fiction isn’t a good career choice. The majority of authors never make any money.

The fiction author must set good goals: writing for family and friends, sharing with their community, selling a 100 copies, marketing to a specific niche, or simply getting a story out there. Write for love. Write for the skill. Write for the pursuit of knowledge. Write for your mom.

The love that goes into the telling makes a story worth reading.

Why do I write? I write for Torre.

[Update: The Digital Reader post claims Amazon Kindle book sales pass hardcover and the numbers imply 2009 sold Kindle books at 50% of hardcover sales. According to this TBIResearch post, Amazon controls 90% ebook market. Given Amazon sales are less than 20% of market, this claim makes sense since.]

iPad Apps for Writers

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Yes, the iPad is practical. After a month, I find myself leaving the laptop behind and using the iPad including doing some heavy IT work. The right applications make all the difference. Here is a list of my favorite iPad apps for the traveling writer.

Reading Software

Don’t forget to test your latest eBook in all the readers including iBooks (iTunes link,) Kindle for iPad, Stanza for iPhone, and B&N Reader (soon.) Make sure the contents page works and pictures look nice.

Pages

The iPad version of Pages has everything a writer needs. I love the lack of “bells and whistles” clutter seen in other word processors. It supports formatting options, pictures with text flow, headers and footers. Save the fancy layout for a page layout program like InDesign if print is necessary. Share documents with your desktop using mail, MobileMe, DropBox, or using GoodReader (below.) A Bluetooth keyboard allows faster typing.  I paid $9.99 for Pages.

Dictionary.com

The Dictionary.com (iTunes link) dictionary and thesaurus based on Random House Unabridged Dictionary includes audio pronunciation, and stores recent queries. A free app.

GoodReader

Use GoodReader to read PDFs with flowing text, move office documents from your desktop computer to your iPad wirelessly, read the office documents, or open them in iWork using the new Document Sharing feature in iPhone OS. (See my last post.) I paid $0.99 for this app.

SketchBook Pro

Sketch latest ideas or produce cover artwork using Autodesk SketchBook Pro with or without a stylus. Layers support allows complex drawing or working from a pencil sketch template. I paid $7.99 for this app and purchased a Pogo Sketch stylus to go with it.

Advanced Tools

If you need to work on your home or office computer while away try Desktop Connect or iTap. Some network knowledge required. Non-techies may try LogMeIn service.

Other Considerations

  • Evernote: Some like this; some don’t. Supports voice and other multimedia notes. Service in the cloud for access from other machines.
  • PaperDesk: organize notes or doodle with a stylus.

How do you keep productive on your iPad?

My #FridayFlash Hiatus

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My flash story hiatus continues. Besides the busy world of writing computer programs, I have several writing projects that need my attention. My novel, Raven Memory, is in the final stages nearing the end of a four year journey. I also have another novel nearing completion. Very soon, I will publish a collection of short stories. Check back for posts on these projects.

I will post more #FridayFlash fiction sometime in the future. If you missed some of previous stories, check the Stories category, Flash Fiction tag, or the Short Stories tab at the top.

Looking for #FridayFlash stories? Check these:

Thanks for reading.

Standing Workstation at the Office

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Standing workstation at the office

Last month I decided to get off my butt and stand at the computer while I write my stories after a full day of writing computer programs. My posterior can’t handle sitting all day. I also noticed that my health has declined since switching to a desk job. And I bicycle daily! As I pointed out in my previous post on my home solution, two studies concluded (NYT report and physorg.com) that daily jogging isn’t enough to offset the damage of sitting at a desk for eight hours. I agree. Sitting is a killer.

Writing computer programs while standing

Writing computer programs

My office purchased an Alvin WorkMaster height-adjustable drafting table. Upon its arrival, I ripped open the boxes and assembled this beauty. The key to working in comfort is the table height. The keyboard should be low enough so that elbows are at the sides and palms remain off the surface. I stand at 72 inches tall, and setting the table height at 40 inches seems about right. The CTO decided I also needed a stool. Changing positions saves the body from stress.

This desk includes a shelf underneath for my computer programming references and (most important) speakers for music. As seen in the photographs, there is plenty of room for multiple monitors, books, sketchpads, and decorations. Plus, I now feel powerful gazing down at the underlings (just teasing.)

Shelf for references books and music

Over the last month, the standing desk at home has worked out great. I do all of my writing while standing and some of my other work. I feel more alert keeping focused on writing.

Next month I will post an update on working daily with a standing workstation.

Optional stool primarily used for hanging jacket

For weekly talk on healthy habits for writers (and other desk slaves) see #writerlbsOff at Don’t Fence Me In by Anne Tyler Lord, or follow the tweets with hashtag: #writerlbsOff on Twitter.

Stand up and write!