Samuel, Seer

Since October, I've been busy revising and republishing books. So far, we've re-published Scott's Tanella's Flight, Natalie's A Gigolo for Christmas, and The Mom's Place, and my Clues to Food. We've also republished our anthology, Bits and Bites.

Additionally, as an Editor with the Electric Scroll, I've been working with four other authors, and their books are in various stages of publication.

Today, I want to talk about the newest book out, Samuel, Seer. It's the fictionalized autobiography of the Old Testament prophet, Samuel, and it's...hmm...what's a better word than Awesome? Well, it's better than Awesome!

Also, today, and until the 9th, the Kindle ebook version is free! (Get it here.)

A M Jenner

Shocking Revelation!

A M Jenner

Deep breath. Ready?

In the past, A M Jenner has actually been a group of three related authors all pretending to be the same person. That past is over. Some of us are making career changes, and our opportunity for working as closely together as we have been is changing. One of us is a recent college graduate, another is just finishing a long career out in the real world and is coming home to write full time, while the third has recently finished with formal education and is now pursuing a more useful informal path of education.

Rather than deal with the extensive accounting changes that would otherwise be necessary, we have decided to become separate business entities. We have all signed with the Electric Scroll, a wonderful publishing house which has agreed to re-publish our back-list under our proper names, so the credit – and the royalties – will be given where they are due. We'll be editing the books as they're republished; some will have only slight changes, while others are getting massive rewrites. They'll also be publishing our new books as we move forward. They even agreed to put up links to the old, self-published versions of the books until each is republished. Told you they were wonderful!

Natalie Peck

A M Jenner will continue to write her intense romantic suspense novels, while Natalie Peck will receive due applause for her sweet heart-felt romances, and Scott Ashby will be made to claim his wonderful SF and fantasy. And you wondered why we never put author pictures anywhere!

Please take note that we’re not angry at each other, and this isn’t some sort of a terrible break-up. Rather, it’s a changed life situation where three literary artists no longer have the opportunity to work together in the same way they have been. We still intend to proof-read for each other, and work together via email as much as possible. However, our working arrangements have taken a radical change in new directions that are very good for each of us as individuals, while at the same time resulting in a change in how we present ourselves as authors.

All three of us have signed with the Electric Scroll, and have decided that maintaining our separate author pages there will be much easier than asking poor Scott to create and maintain separate web sites for each of us. The web address is www.electric-scroll.com.

Scott Ashby

Our shared website, www.am-jenner.com, will be going away shortly, and this blog will eventually dissolve as well, though all three of us will be contributing to the Electric Scroll's blog from time to time. You'll find us there, writing about things we find interesting, and hopefully things you'll like as well.

We’d like to collectively thank you for being our good friends and loyal readers, and hope that you continue as our friends and readers into the future. Expect the same sort of good writing you’ve enjoyed in the past, and join us in wishing the best to each other as we pursue our writing with a little less help from our friends.

A M Jenner
Scott Ashby
Natalie Peck

E-books Part Two

I wrote last week about how I disagreed with one of the statements in an article written by Don Sakers in the April edition of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.

This week, I’d like to present something more from his article.

“First, here’s the simple matter of availability. In the past, most books had a short shelf life. An average SF book would be on sale at general bookstores for a few months, a year at most, before it went out of print. If you’d just discovered an author and wanted to read all of their previous books, you’d be haunting used book stores.

“E-books, however, never go out of print. Only discover an author after her twelfth book? No problem – just go online and buy the previous eleven.”

As a reader who still haunts used books stores trying to fill in gaps in my collection, I heartily agree with Mr. Sakers. This is one of the best things about ebooks. Because they do not take up valuable storage space in a warehouse while the paper gets damp and decays, they have a much longer shelf life. They can be stored indefinitely in a computer, and can stay in print as long as the publisher – or the author – choose to have them remain available. It becomes very easy to catch up with the older books you want to read.

Keeping in mind that what Mr. Sakers says about SF books applies to all genres, he goes on to proclaim, “Nearly ninety years worth of SF books have been published; authors and their agents are working furiously to put much of that into e-book format.” I’d like to add my thanks to the families and estates of deceased authors who are allowing those works to be published in electronic formats.

E-books are very convenient, as long as you keep them charged. You can carry a whole library around in your fingertips. They weigh very little. As the arthritis advances into my hands and wrists, I can no longer read any book that weighs more than a standard paperback while lying in bed at night. If I want to read a large paperback, or a hard cover book, I have to be sitting at a desk or table, and have the book on the table. I simply can’t hold that much weight in my hands.

Yet, I’ve been reading huge collections on my Nook. The Mark Twain collection is over 6,000 pages, and the H. G. Wells collection is slightly thicker. I can read books only a few decades old, as well – because adding Diane Duane’s entire Young Wizards collection added no weight to my Nook.

Overhead is significantly decreased on e-books as well, a point that Mr. Sakers does not address in his article. Although the author, editors, publishers, cover artists, and agent still must be paid, there are no storage fees. Amazon charges a shipping fee of around two cents per book to help cover bandwidth charges, and the book is delivered more or less instantly. That’s much less than the $6 super saver shipping that takes a week, on average, before the book is in your hands to read. Because of these factors, e-books are usually less expensive than the print version of the same content.

Don’t get me wrong. I love turning pages, and smelling the paper and glue scent of new books. I have more than 5,000 print books in my home and have no intention of stopping buying print books. But I also love holding my Nook in one hand while I read, and turning the page with a touch of my thumb. I love the ability to purchase eight to twelve e-books for the same $25 gift card that will get one or two print books. I love discovering new authors and catching up with old ones. And as an author, I love the ability to get my books into the hands of people who will love my characters as much as I do.

Correcting a Fallacy

Today I’d like to talk about ebooks, and specifically their impact on the publishing world. I was just reading my (electronic!) copy of Analog, which is a contradiction in terms in and of itself, if you think about it. There is an article by Don Sakers which begins on page 102, where he writes some about ebooks, then gives reviews of several books which are available in both print and e-formats. Although his article is specifically about SF, it applies to all genres of writing. Mr. Sakers says, “Another consequence of e-books is removing traditional publishers as gatekeepers of content. This has both good and bad implications for SF. On the positive side, much more good SF will be published. The age of the mass market is fading; in a sense, we’re entering the age of the niche. To be sure, some niches are larger than others. There will always be big-name authors – but now, we’ll also have medium-size names, small names, tiny names, microscopic and nano-scale names all equally available to readers.

“The bad news is that the same expansion will result in enormously more bad SF. No one reader has the time to wade through thousands of unsuitable books in search of the one or two that are suitable.”

I’ve seen this argument repeated too often to count. Go back and read that last sentence again. When he’s talking about ebooks removing traditional publishers as gatekeepers, what he actually means is self-publishing of ebooks. Mr. Sakers seems to be discounting the thousands of traditionally published ebooks that are available to the reading public. The debate here is not electronic vs. print books, but traditional vs. self-publishing. His opinion is clear: self-publishing will force readers to wade through thousands of horribly written manuscripts in order to discover the one or two gems that have been written by good (i.e. traditionally published) authors.

No matter who states it, the argument is always drawn on the same lines, there will be thousands of horrible things to wade through in order to find the rare gems. I take exception to the math used by people who parrot this argument.

First, it’s very difficult to tell, before purchase, whether a book is self or traditionally published.

Second, there are many authors who have been traditionally published for many years, who are now self-publishing alongside their traditionally published works. Does the fact they are now self-pubbing suddenly make their work inferior? Of course not.

It is very true that many authors, myself included, would not be published at all if not for the financially feasible options of print-on-demand and e-books. However, it is absolutely not true that there are thousands of bad self-published books to every two or three gems.

I read constantly. I cannot get to sleep at night without reading. I read self-published books. I read traditionally published books. I read long out-of-print books that have been restored and made available as e-books. In 2012 I read 410 works containing well over 45,000 pages. That’s pleasure reading, not the reading I do for school classes, or for other informational purposes. It’s also books, not counting magazines, blogs, and my morning cereal box.

Every once in a while I find a book that’s so badly written, or so badly edited, that I can’t bear to finish it. More often I find a book that has outrageously stupid mistakes in the writing or editing – things that should have been caught by either the writer or one of the many editors. I find this sort of mistake in both traditionally published and self-published books.

By and large, most of the things I read are good enough to finish the book. Many of them are good enough to re-read. Unless I have an atypical experience as a reader, I would say that the ratios presented in Mr. Sakers' article are exactly reversed. Readers of traditional and self-published books have the privilege of enjoying thousands of well-written, well-edited stories, while knowing that they will definitely come across the few horrible pieces, which are both self- and traditionally published.

Resolution Update: November

My goals for this year began as:

• Graduate from college. (Accomplished)
• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to do since I started college. (Accomplished)
• Take a vacation someplace out of Arizona. (Accomplished)
• Hug my daughter every day. (In Progress)
• Learn how to make book trailers and post them to YouTube. (Accomplished!)

As I continue through the year, my evolving list of goals reads:

• Hug my daughter every day. (Still in Progress, with modifications)
• Support my daughter as she takes her turn at college. (Accomplished)
• Finish editing The Siege of Kwennjurat and get it published. (Accomplished)
• Reformat all ebooks so they look better. (Accomplished)

The hugs were temporarily stopped during October, as we realized we were passing the flu back and forth. Now that we're recovered enough to consider ourselves no longer contagious, they have resumed.

Happily, The Siege of Kwennjurat was released on October 24th. Of course, if you read my blog, you already know this, because I've talked about nothing else all month. I've been working in this world for sixteen years, and was rather happy to be done with it at last. During most of that time, I have had a hand drawn and colored map of the Ten Kingdoms hanging above my desk. Even though the book was available for sale slightly before the 24th, I had decided to take the map down on the 24th, as a private celebration of the completion of my work in that world, and a symbol to myself that goals can be accomplished, even when they take a long time to materialize.

On the 22nd, I had a dream. Book ideas often come to me through dreams, and the vivid scenes that are the seed for the novel usually remains largely unchanged through the writing process. In this dream, I saw two people meeting in a shadowy place, and speaking in low tones. I recognized one of them immediately as a character from Kwennjurat. From their conversation, I soon realized that the other person had been mentioned in the books, but didn't have a large role. I had thought the second person was dead. They are not dead. I have left my map up. Research and plotting is already underway. There will, apparently, be a third book in the Kwennjurat Chronicles, even though most of the action in the third book will not be in the Ten Kingdoms. Hang on to your hats, this is going to be an interesting ride!

I have two trailers up on YouTube, and ideas are coming for other video projects including but not limited to book trailers. My video camera had other ideas. It apparently decided it didn't have any further interest in living, so further forays into video are temporarily delayed until I see enough books to replace the video camera -- or find the money someplace else.

I always have more than one book project under construction, and at any given time they're in different stages of being written, edited, and prepared for publication. Right now, I have a romantic novella that hopefully will be out around thanksgiving. It's a Christmas themed story, so if it misses its deadline it will have to wait a full year. Because of its length, I plan to release it in ebook only, and for at least the first several months, it will be in Amazon's lending program, which means Kindle only. The title is A Gigolo for Christmas. Yes, you heard right, A M Jenner is writing a book with the word "gigolo" in the title. You'll have to get the book and read it to see if my standards have actually slipped. I've also got a short story collection that hopefully will be out around the first of the year named Bits and Bites. By the end of next year, I hope to have the suspense novel Just a Name, and the fantasy Mind Touch published as well, so there's lots of good news and new books in the pipeline for my devoted fans -- all ten of you. (That's a joke - I hope I have more than ten fans.)

On the handcrafting front, I hauled out my daughter's knitting looms and started a shawl, but that project got derailed because of the dollhouse project I'm involved in. It began as an idea to make a miniature bookshop to use as a set for photo shoots for my website, but has evolved into simply a project to build a miniature bookshop dollhouse with a flat above the shop. Each of the floors has been constructed. My mom is planning on finishing and furnishing the flat, and I'm working on the bookshop. So far, I have built the stairs to go upstairs with, laid down hardwood flooring, painted, and polished it, painted the walls in the office at the back of the shop, and I'm working on creating the wainscoting for the front of the shop. I'm not going to post any pictures until it's finished, though. I'm making it on a budget in half-scale, which means I get to make the doors and windows and everything else completely by hand, because purchasing dollhouse things in half-scale is beyond my budget. Plus, it's fun to figure out how to create it and make it look good when my construction materials are mostly found items already in my craft supplies.

I only finished reading seven books this month, but my page total is 4367. 

~Marie

Resolution Update

My goals for this year began as:

• Graduate from college. (Accomplished)
• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to do since I started college. (Accomplished)
• Take a vacation someplace out of Arizona. (Accomplished)
• Hug my daughter every day. (In Progress)
• Learn how to make book trailers and post them to YouTube. (Accomplished!)

As I continue through the year, my evolving list of goals reads:

• Hug my daughter every day.
• Support my daughter as she takes her turn at college. (Accomplished)
• Finish editing The Siege of Kwennjurat and get it published.
• Reformat all ebooks so they look better. (Accomplished)

The hugs continue at an accelerated rate, which is good for both of us.

My daughter has decided that, despite the support, an academic education is not what is right for her, and has left school. We are all happy for her mature decision. While college can be quite useful, it is not for everyone. We're happy that she has realized this, and chosen not to waste any more money, time, and extreme frustration trying to live up to cultural expectations. She is getting a lot of love and support now as she forges her own path in life.

The Siege of Kwennjurat is completely finished, and will be released on October 24th. There's going to be a lot of blog activity this month, with book giveaways and other pre- and post-release activity. I'm so happy to finally have finished this exciting two-volume tale after some sixteen years of combined work on the two books.

Last month I reported success with creating my first-ever video trailer, for Tanella's Flight:

This month, I have doubled my trailers, by adding a new one for The Siege of Kwennjurat. Although they are companion books, the feel of the two trailers is really very different. I think they each fit their book, though.

I finally finished the pair of socks last night. Due to my increasing arthritis in my hands, this will very likely be the last hand-knitting I will ever do. I also finished the quilt. I laid it on the couch to take the picture of it as promised.

I only finished a dozen books this month, but my page total is 5756. They were thicker books than last month.

~Marie

New Book Trailer

I'm so excited! I have finally learned how to do something I've been wanting to do for more than a year. I have made my very first ever book trailer, and posted it to YouTube.

First, I have to thank Paul Carroll, author of Balor Reborn. Last week I agreed to host him on his blog tour. His next stop after my blog involved a tutorial on how to make book trailers. Without his help, I would not have any book trailers until next year or longer.

Second, I need to thank Shen Hart of Literary+, because without her efforts to help authors get together and help each other with marketing, I never would have met Paul Carroll.

Third, I need to thank my friend Dzrt Bxr for performing the music on my trailer and allowing me to use it.

And fourth, I bet by now you're all wanting to actually see the trailer, right? Well, here you go, I hope you all like it!

~Marie



Exciting Mid-Week Announcement!

Just a brief post to show off my new book, The Moms Place. What's The Moms Place about? I'm glad you asked! Here's what is says on the back of the book:


     The Power of Advertising
     Cassi Spencer's upscale restaurant is in trouble. She needs a loan, fast, not advice to spend money she doesn't have on advertising. Especially when that advice comes from the distractingly handsome Rhys Morgan!
     Rhys Morgan likes Cassi's idea of creating a training ground to get homeless moms out of the shelters. He likes Cassi even better, and he’s willing to help her...under certain conditions.
     Together, can they save Cassi's livelihood and her dream, or will everything end up as yesterday's news?


Because of those nasty "circumstances beyond my control", The Moms Place is being published on the day before I leave town for a week. This means there is not yet an ebook available, and there is not a page on my website linking to the book. For at least the next week, and maybe for a few days after that, the only way to purchase this book is in print, through this link: The Moms Place. I'll get the ebooks up as soon as I can, but between my sister's wedding and non-refundable tickets, I can't move the trip around.

This is also a great time to introduce my new partner, Jenna. Jenna plotted this book, and helped write it, even before she realized she wanted to be a writer. It's an excellent romance, and I hope you'll enjoy it.

~Marie

Ebooks vs. Print Books

In most respects, print books are equivalent to ebooks. Both copies usually have the same content. With ereader devices such as Kindle and Nook, both are equally easy to carry around. You can carry more ebooks with you in a smaller space than you can print books. Most ebooks are less expensive.

The one area where print books had complete superiority over ebooks was that they could be autographed. I mean, where are you going to sign an ebook? On the back of the Kindle? On the screen?

Yesterday I came across a service which I totally dismissed, because I was sure there was a catch. The idea wouldn’t let go of me. It kept me up all night. Early this morning, I checked it out. If there’s a catch, it’s so well buried this cynical author can’t find it. I signed up.

It’s called Kindlegraph. It’s a way to collect autographs for ebooks. It’s totally amazing, and now all of my books are able to be signed. My print books have hand-made bookplates which anyone can have for the asking. My ebooks can be signed through the Kindlegraph site.

Here are the facts. A Kindlegraph is a PDF file containing the book’s cover image, a personalized note from the author, and their signature. It can be stored on your computer, printed out, or kept in a folder on your ereader. Because it’s a PDF file, most ereaders will display it. You don’t have to own a Kindle. You could even get Kindlegraphs for your print books, print them out, and glue them in the front, if you’d like. You don’t have to own or buy the book to get a Kindlegraph, because no one checks up on you. The Kindlegraph is a separate document; it is not inserted into the book. The author can choose whether to actually sign their name with their mouse, or use a font script. I sign with the mouse, even though it’s a little sloppier than with a pen, because then it is a real autograph. If you tell me you need it signed to a certain person, or you want the inscription to read a certain way, I will personalize the inscription to be the way you want it, just as I would at a book signing. Finally, Kindlegraph and I don’t charge you anything for the service. It is totally free, unless you use Amazon’s Personal Document Service to email it to your Kindle…but that fee goes to Amazon.

Requesting a Kindlegraph is easy. Go to www.kindlegraph.com/authors/AM_Jenner, sign in with your twitter account, give them an email address where you want your document sent, locate the book you want signed, and click the request button under the book. I get a daily email informing me when I have requests. I write the personalization and sign it and send it back to you. That’s it! Easy as pie, and finally, a way to autograph an ebook!

What is a Sampler?

In embroidery, a sampler is a wall hanging that shows off many different styles of stitching and usually contains an alphabet, some small pictures, and a saying. Young girls would stitch the sampler while still at home so they would have the patterns of the stitches after they married and had their own establishment.

In confections, a sampler is a single container with several different sorts of candy that showcase the manufacturer's abilities and hopefully lead to sales of other containers dedicated to your favorite flavors.

My newest book, Reading Sampler, is made in the same tradition. There are excerpts from six novels in three categories: Assignment to Earth (Science Fiction); Tanella's Flight and Fabric of the World (Fantasy); Deadly Gamble, A Heart Full of Diamonds, and Inherit my Heart (Suspense). The intent is to allow readers to try my books and see if they'd like to read more.

Reading Sampler is available on paper for $12.99 – a full 320 pages of enjoyment, complete with a free autographed bookplate. I expect more people will grab the free ebook.

Yes, you read that right. I'm so confident I can "hook" you on my writing that I'm willing to give away a free ebook as "bait". Go ahead. I dare you. Download it. Share it with your friends. I'm betting that when you get to the end of the sampler, you'll do whatever it takes to find out what happens next.

~Marie

Wow! What a week!

First off, and most exciting, my book A Heart Full of Diamonds has finally been published in print and ebook! Some of my fans have been waiting ten years for this event, so I'm understandably excited. I love the new cover, too. It's been a lot of fun learning to make my own covers, and with this one, I'm feeling confident that I finally know what I'm doing.

What's this one about? Here's what's on the back cover.

Once she saw the diamonds, she was out of options.

A wig, a change of clothes, and nerves of steel freed Marilee from her diamond-stealing husband, but Tony has too many friends in too many places for her to trust anyone.

A thousand miles away, she's fashioned a new life in a safe haven. Her brawny neighbor Richard and his engaging son Derreck would do anything to help her, but she keeps her past a secret until two of Tony's goons kidnap her in broad daylight.

The race is on, and Marilee's life hangs in the balance!

A Heart Full of Diamonds is available in print here, and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

In other news, the renovations have been finished on the older books. Clues to Food and Fabric of the World have new covers and lower prices.

Due to requests from blog readers, I'm working on preparing Assignment to Earth and Inherit my Heart for publication in print and ebook. I'm also putting together a short story collection and a sampler book, which should be out shortly. I expect that The Siege of Kwennjurat will be coming out sometime this winter. It needed more work than I had time to complete during summer break.

School starts again in two weeks and I've got a very full schedule this fall, so if you think I've dropped off the face of the planet, you'll know where I am. In the mean time, I can promise there will be a new blog post every Tuesday on something related to writing.

~Marie

Tanella's New Look

The book has been in print only two years, and just over a year for the ebook; why does it need a new cover? It's more than just a face lift.

My first covers were made using CreateSpace's wonderful cover creator tool, which made some really great covers for our books. They looked very nice, and I liked them a lot.

When I was ready to release the novels as ebooks, I discovered that because I had used their template and just plugged in my own information and photos, CreateSpace held the copyright on the cover, while I held the copyright on the interior only. In other words, I couldn't use the cover from my print book as the cover of the ebook. I quickly made some rather bad covers for my ebooks and released them, but I was never really happy with them.

A year later, I decided to do something about it. I bought a photo editing program that would do what I needed it to do, and spent time learning how to use it. I know I'll get better with more practice, but I already like my new covers better than the old ones. The best part is that because I am now making my covers from scratch, I own all the rights to them. My ebooks and print books can now have the same cover - which will help people who have seen one version find the other one at the store.

This also means everyone who bought Tanella's Flight in print now has a collector's item, an autographed first edition with the original cover, which is now out of print. The book is still in print, with the new cover, but the original black cover is no longer available, ever.

Within the next month, I will be replacing the cover on Fabric of the World, so if you want to get the original cover before it's gone forever, I recommend you purchase it before August 1, when I plan to take it off the market to work on the new files.

~Marie

I'd Like to Make an Announcement

One murder, followed by three attempted and two actual murders committed by way of "cleaning up the mess", too much gambling, cheap women, an Old Italian Family, police officers and detectives, a private security company, Indians, a little bit of light romance, one cool diner, and a hot frying pan to the head later, A M Jenner is proud to announce Deadly Gamble; a novel of suspense.

How do you get it?

For those with Kindles, you want to go here.

If you have a Nook, you want this link.

All e-reader formats are at Smashwords, and will be shipped (shortly, I hope) to Apple, Kobo, Sony, and other e-stores.

If you just can't live without the smell of a newly bound and printed on paper book, you're looking for this link. For those who purchase paper books, email me with your order number and address, and tell me who you want it inscribed to, and I will send you an autographed book plate to stick in the front of your book. If ebook owners want the bookplate, I'll send one to you too, but I'm not sure what you're going to stick it on.

The ebooks are $2.99; the print book is $14.99 because paper costs more than electrons.

There's some interesting photos and info about the writing of the book on its page at my website, and a hilarious but absolutely true story about creating the cover art in this blog post.

~Marie

Going Green

For centuries, books were paper of some sort. There was no other sort of book. The paper was made with pulp from some sort of plant. Before easily made movable type was available, books were copied out by hand, or each page was carved from wood and they were printed. In fact, the word manuscript literally means hand-written.

Even after printing became easier, books were still written by hand. Every revision and draft was re-written by hand. Can you imagine waiting for, say, the next book in the Harry Potter series if J K Rowling had to write every draft of every 500+ page book by hand? Those 500 printed pages are single-spaced. Most manuscripts are double-spaced, to give room between the lines for making corrections. One page of typed, double-spaced text is roughly equal to two pages of hand written, single-spaced text. Most of my manuscripts go through two major revisions and four to six minor ones.

Mark Twain was the first author to write a manuscript on a typewriter, for which his editor was probably very grateful. My grandmother was a writer, and typed her things with three sheets of paper and two of carbon paper in the machine. If she made a mistake even on the last line of the page, she had to re-type the entire page.

Writing always has taken a lot of paper to produce a book, but that is changing. I write with my computer. If I make a mistake, I back up and it automagically disappears. My computer keeps track of all the changes I make. It can put it back the way I had it in the first place if I decide I don't like it. I can carry a hundred manuscripts on a flash drive in the palm of my hand.

Working on Tanella's Flight, we printed out the manuscript at each stage, using about a ream of paper. We sent printed copies to no less than fifteen readers. We probably went through at least two cases of paper preparing one book for publication.

Fabric of the World was only printed once before publication. Your eyes and brain process information differently when you read on a backlit screen and when you read on paper. We had to print the manuscript once to read it on paper, and find the last million mistakes you never notice on a computer screen.

With Deadly Gamble, the book was written, revised, read, and checked without being printed out even once. We did the final "paper test" with an ebook reader. When you're reading on an e-ink device such as a Nook or Kindle, your brain processes it like paper. People who buy an ebook copy of Deadly Gamble will get a book that has never been printed on paper. We think that's pretty awesome.

We still offer print copies for people who don't have, don't want, or can't afford an ebook reader, and those who prefer paper books. It's certainly easier (at the moment) to get a paper book autographed. We are not against paper books; we have a huge library full of them. We still think it's absolutely cool to be able to produce an entire book without using a single piece of paper!

~Marie

Progress Report

Publishing a book is a game of hurry up and wait. With Deadly Gamble, the first draft was written in 27 days in November of 2006, then put on the back burner in favor of other projects. In 2009 we pulled it out for evaluation. A timeline was created, and a frenzy of work ensued to make the book fit the timeline. It was sent out to test readers in January 2011. A second rewrite was completed based on the recommendations of the readers. By mid-June, it's formatting time.

First, I format the page size and interior layout for the print book. When I know how many pages the book contains, I create the cover for the print book. I upload the print files to our distributor and have to wait while they check the files.

Now that I have the cover, I can use the front for the ebook. I have to make separate size images for each of the three ebook distributors I work with. I format the interior files one way and leave it as a word document for one distributor, and turn the entire thing into an HTML file for the other two.

I get an email from the print place that the files are ready for printing, and I order a proof copy; the first time the manuscript will see paper.

I upload the files to two of the distributors. Smashwords has it up for sale in minutes. Amazon has to review the files first. Barnes & Noble has put a hold on my account. (I mentioned this in the last post; they still haven't called me back.) I check my mailbox, and my proof copy from CreateSpace isn't here yet. I don't expect it until the 8th, but I keep hoping.

I go into the Independence Day weekend with dismal thoughts about it being Tuesday before I can really do anything more on my book.

July 4, 3:30 AM. I wake up, and know I won't be getting any more sleep tonight. Out of habit more than anything else, I check my author dashboards at all my sites. Even though it's a holiday weekend, the computers never sleep. The Kindle copies have gone live. (They're available here.) I update my website to provide a link to my book's page at Amazon. Smashwords still doesn't have any ISBN's, but expect to have them available on Thursday. The hold is inexplicably gone from the Barnes & Noble account, and I upload Deadly Gamble. Now I get to wait again while the files are inspected, before they go live. Links will continue to be provided on my website, and announcements made as each format becomes available, but most of my attention will turn to Tanella's Flight on Tuesday as I add a map of the Ten Kingdoms and redesign the cover.

You Just Made My Day!

Today is June 30. It is my self-imposed deadline for publishing Deadly Gamble. I get up at 4:00 in the morning and commence work. I have a lot of ebook formatting to complete to make my publishing deadline.

I uploaded the print files at CreateSpace on Monday, and watch the mailbox for my proof copy. After it gets here and I check it over, it's very likely there will be no changes necessary, and it can be published with the click of a mouse. There's only one detail I'm not certain is perfect.

My fingers dance over the keyboard and caress the mouse. The Kindle formatting is now complete and the files uploaded to Amazon. They have to be reviewed and approved before they will go live in the Kindle store. It may take 24 - 48 hours. I move on to the next stage.

More fast finger work readies my files for Barnes & Noble. A few clicks take me to the Barnes & Noble pubit site. There is a big colored banner across the top of my dashboard page asking why I haven't called them in reply to the email I didn't get from them. For unknown reasons, there's a hold on my account and I have to call them to get it straightened out before I can upload books. I called and left a voice mail.

I turn my attention to the formatting for Smashwords. I finish, and upload the files. They tell me the book is now available for sale at their site. I can't send it out to vendors like Apple and Sony until the files are approved and the book has an ISBN. Smashwords is out of ISBN's, but should have more soon.

It's noon, and there's only twelve hours left on my deadline. The book is going to be late. I'm falling asleep at the keyboard on two hours sleep. I'm feeling down, because I'm not going to meet the goal, due to those pesky "circumstances beyond my control". I still need to do the ebook formatting for the books I plan to give away for various reasons, but I will do that after a nap. I've now done everything I can, and make the two-foot commute from my office to my bed.

It's 4:00 in the afternoon. I am awakened by the third phone call in as many hours and decide I'd better get up and check on my books. Amazon is still waiting for review. Barnes & Noble still hasn't called.
I check my email before going to Smashwords to see if they have any ISBN's yet. Today's prize is sitting in my inbox. There's an email from Smashwords. Someone has already bought a copy of Deadly Gamble. My spirits soar. I'm not even finished publishing the book and some kind soul has bought a copy. I don't know who you are, but you just made my day. Thank you very much.

~Marie

P.S. Deadly Gamble is available at Smashwords here. Other announcements will be made as formats become available. There will always be links on the book's page on my website along with cool facts about the book.

Deadly Gamble Cover

It's getting so an author can't go out and play in the street without drawing a crowd! Well, not quite, but while getting the cover art for Deadly Gamble, it sure felt that way.

After the concept for the cover art had changed several times, we finally hit on the idea we wanted; a chalk outline on pavement, absolute proof in the entertainment world that a corpse was involved. The idea came late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, the pavement in the street outside was cool enough to lie on, and I took my adult daughter out into the street to be my model. She laid down, and I began tracing around her with a stick of white sidewalk chalk. When we were nearly finished, a car drove past. I ignored it.

A minute later, it came back, pointed the other direction. A woman got out, wanting to know how she could help. It seems her young daughter had seen my daughter lying in the street and was worried about her. We explained we were making a book cover, and everything was fine. They asked again to make sure all was well, then went on their way, satisfied they'd done their good deed for the day. We finished the photo shoot while giggling. We'd have a fun story to tell later. I put the pictures into the computer, and didn't bother with them, since it would be months before I was ready to make the cover.

June came, and I was deep in the production of Deadly Gamble. It was time to make the cover, but the artistic shadows from the bare branches of our tree made the pictures unusable. What I needed was photos without shadows, but it being June, I couldn't have my daughter lying on the hot asphalt at noon. We decided to re-shoot just after dawn, when there would be even lighting and cool asphalt.

On a Saturday morning, we put my daughter down in the street again and began drawing. Anne was down on her knees, tracing our willing corpse, and I was standing in the middle of the street making sure they didn't get run over. Two women came by, with that garage sale look in their eyes. They stopped and asked if my daughter was all right. We assured them she was, that it was a photo shoot for a book cover. They drove away, but didn't really believe us; about three minutes later, a police car came slowly cruising down the street. Fortunately my daughter was now vertical. The police car slowed, nearly stopped, and Anne waved him on his way. A minute later, the women came past again, obviously disappointed that we weren't being arrested.

These pictures worked out well. During the second shoot, I had taken a shot over Anne's shoulder as she wrote our name on the street. I intended to use it for the author photo on the back, and it was good, but our name wasn't complete enough to see what she was writing, so she asked to reshoot just the one picture.

Saturday arrived, and we draped our cooperative part-time corpse on the street again, and Anne started the outline. Just as I was about to snap the photo, a neighbor drove by and wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help us. It's hard to explain that it's a book cover photo shoot when you have a giggling corpse behind you.

Here's the finished cover, what do you think?

It's complicated. Very Complicated.

All I really want to do is publish my books in print and ebook, and sell them online. You wouldn't think this would be such a difficult thing to accomplish, but it gets complicated. Very complicated.

To write a novel, I use Word. It's an excellent program for passing a document around to my partner and my readers and back again. I usually use Excel for my outline, and keeping track of where I am in the manuscript while I write. In the final editing stage, I have to convert the manuscript to an html file, which involves using Notepad. Then I use Calibre to format it as an EPUB file and load it onto my nook. The brain processes the words differently on "paper" than it does on a back lit screen. Using the nook means saving a whole ream of paper on this step, and catching a lot of typos. (That's four programs and two devices, are you keeping track?)

For print publishing, I use CreateSpace. I like the quality of their product and their customer service. Once my book is "finished" and "ready to publish", I us Word to do considerable formatting of page size, margins, fonts, making sure everything is on the correct side (left or right page) and that it all looks good. Then I save all that formatting as a PDF. I download a cover template that's based on the size of the book and the number of pages, and use Photoshop to create the cover. When I'm finished making the cover, Createspace wants me to smush it all down to one layer and save it as a PDF file. (Now I'm up to five programs).

For ebook publishing, I like Smashwords because they will market to a large variety of stores for me. I am not fond of the way their "meat grinder" (seriously, that's what they call their ebook converter) does to a book for Kindle formatting. Also, although their royalties aren't bad, I can get better at Amazon and Barnes & Noble if I upload directly to their sites, and let Smashwords handle the other ebook stores and formats. All three places have different submission requirements, which means I have to format the book one way for Smashwords, a second way for Amazon, and a third way for Barnes & Noble. I also have to make three different-sized cover photos (of the same cover), one for each vendor. And at Amazon, I have to use an extra program, Mobipocket Creator, to get it formatted right. (I'm up to six programs, two devices, and five separate formattings.)

Finally, I want to give ebooks to those readers who consistently do a good job of helping me make significant and helpful changes, which means I'm re-formatting the manuscript as an html file, and putting it into Calibre again, to end up with formats readable on Nook, Kindle, and computers.

I've just spent the last two weeks learning how to move around in Photoshop without blowing anything up, and figuring out the easiest ways to make manuscripts into html files for Calibre. I don't think the time was wasted. I was shocked though, when I went to upload all the very nice ebooks and discovered I still needed to do a lot of formatting. I now have an Excel file that outlines each step for me, so I don't forget anything.

I still wouldn't trade away the freedom of being a self-published independent author!

~Marie

Looking for Readers Again!

School is out, I got straight A's, and am halfway to graduation. It's time to work feverishly on writing until I fall back into academia in mid-August.

What have I done so far? I've learned how to format a manuscript for a successful conversion to e-book; learned enough about photoshop to make decent book covers; cleaned up all the files on my external hard drive, including a badly needed reorganization of my writing files; engaged in a seriously painful battle with a sinus infection; and began coding an update on my website.

My goals are to publish Deadly Gamble by the end of June in print and e-book, re-do the covers and e-book formatting for Tanella's Flight and Fabric of the World, and do as much as possible to get the next two novels ready to publish in October and April.

The October novel has been read, and is entirely in my hands now. I am looking for readers for the April novel. This one is called The Mom's Place. It is a romance, but it is a clean romance. It has a contemporary setting.

I'm looking for people who have MS Word to read and edit the manuscript. I would like to send it out to 5-6 people on Monday, and you will have three weeks to read, edit, and return it. As always, I'm looking for people who are willing to help out, and not people who just want a sneak peek at the manuscript. Instructions on how to edit will come with the manuscript. If you're interested in reading, please email me at marie@am-jenner.com.

Thanks,

~Marie

Winding Down...or Ramping Up?

Two weeks. Four more "Instructional Sessions" in each of my classes. And Finals. then I'm out for the "summer". I'm worn out and looking forward to the break.

As soon as I'm free of schoolwork, I'll return to my very neglected writing. Anne has been working over Deadly Gamble, and should pass it to me soon.

I will be diving into learning photoshop, with the idea of making our own cover this time instead of using a CreateSpace template. It's not that we don't love their templates, but if we use their template, they own the copyright on the cover, and I can't use the same cover for the ebook. If I make the cover, I can use the same one for the ebook, and I like that.

I'll also be learning better ways to format the ebooks so they look better internally.

I'll go over Deadly Gamble, and then it can be formatted for print and ebooks, and the cool cover put on it, and sent out into the wide world.

There will be website updates as well, something I've been neglecting. Does anyone know how hard it is to make a shopping cart for your website? I was going to take a class on that this fall, but they've decided not to teach it (now that I've completed the prerequisites!)

As soon as I've finished that, I'll be making new covers for Tanella's Flight, Fabric of the World, and Clues to Food, and uploading those for print; then I'll be reformatting the ebook versions and republishing with the new covers and better internal formatting.

If it's still not time for school to start, I'll get working on final edits for The Siege of Kwennjurat, which is the sequal to Tanella's Flight.

The fall semester will be challenging mentally, but not as challenging physically, because most of my classes are online, and those that are on campus are lined up in neat, compact blocks on Tuesday and Thursday, so I'll have a lot less travelling and wasted time than I have with the swiss-cheese schedule I have now.

~Marie