Publetariat

Phantom Editors and Writing 'Mistakes'

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This post, from Marsha Durham, originally appeared on her Writing Companion blog on 3/6/09.

Do you mark errors you find when you read books? If you do correct text, be sure that what you’ve done is . . . well, correct.

I occasionally correct errors in Wikipedia and books, such as dates and people’s names. Sometimes I correct typos, although I’m not really into joining the super-vigilant typo-police. I usually correct a typo only if it’s in a library book and may mislead other readers. For example, a Colleen McCullough novel had a scene set in a royal court. A whipping there was described as a ‘kindly act’ when the story’s context suggested that ‘kingly act’ was probably what was meant.

Recently I borrowed a library copy of a novel called The Writing Class, by US writer Jincy Willett. I enjoyed the book—it covers writing issues but is also a whodunit—but I was also interested to see that a previous reader had inserted three ‘corrections’.

What do you think about what the book’s Phantom Editor corrected?

Interestingly, Jincy responded, and I’ve now  incorporated her comments.

Akimbo: Correct–or not?

. . .[S]ince all they had to tell the police was that some unidentified joker had claimed that another unidentified man was dead, the police wouldn’t be inclined to race to the beach, blue lights and sirens akimbo.

The origins of akimbo were words meaning ’sharply bent’ and ‘crooked’, and anything akimbo should be able to be bent. It usually refers to human limbs: arms akimbo, legs akimbo.

Can blue lights be akimbo? Maybe, as a figurative description of flashes of blue light breaking over the scene. But a sound—the sirens—can’t be. So yes, I agree with Phantom Editor on this one.

JINCY: “Akimbo” was used in a deliberately off way. We’re in Amy’s p.o.v. throughout (that is, 3rd person, single p.o.v., with the exception of the Sniper material), and this is the sort of deliberate odd word choice that she would make (I hope); it was intended to be droll, because Amy is.

Between you and I: Correct or not?

Carla, a member of the writing class, tells Amy, her writing teacher: ‘Everybody understood that piece but me! Between you and I,’ she had whispered, ‘I was just winging it.’

Phantom Editor had a pencilled-in a correction about it: ‘between you and me’.

The correction makes the phrase grammatically correct. But for dialogue, editors should investigate further. Not every character uses grammatically correct speech. Maybe Carla is someone who always uses the phrase ‘between you and I’. Many people do. A good editor would check with the author and examine how characters talk throughout the book.

JINCY:  Carla uses the wrong pronoun case in dialogue, and again this was deliberate on my part, although I can’t remember why, except that I always notice when people do this.

Careen: Correct or not?

At first all she could make out was a small car entering the far end of the lot at an unsafe speed, at least for speech bumps, and sure enough it hit three of them, bottoming out each time . . . with an attendant rattle that sounded like a dislodged oil pan, and still it careened forward, coming straight for Amy.

Phantom Editor changed careened to careered. Which is right? This one is tricky: It depends on the culture the story is set in, the writer’s cultural background, and the editor’s decision to stick to old or changed rules of usage.

Read the rest of the post on the Writing Companion blog.

13 Twitter Tips and Tutorials For Beginners

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This post, from Darren Rowse, originally appeared on his TwiTip site on 4/18/09.

Just starting out on Twitter? Looking for some Twitter Tips to get you started?

Twitter is bound to have a load of new users today as it is being featured on Oprah – so I thought it might be a good day to share some tips for the beginner Twitter user who is just getting going with the medium.

1. What’s in it for Your Followers? – How to be Useful on Twitter

2. 10 Easy Steps for Twitter Beginners – good sound advice and tips on getting going on Twitter  

3. 8 Sure-Fire Ways to Tick off the Twitterverse – a few things to avoid on Twitter 

4. 5 Ways I Benefit from Twitter – this outlines why I love Twitter in my business of building blogs 

5. Defining Your Twitter Goals – this one is more for those who want to use Twitter for other purposes than just letting their family know when they’ll be home. 

6. How to Set up a Twitter Account – most of your are probably past this one but it could be useful if you’re a ‘Pre-Twitter’ user.

7. 5 Steps to Model Successful Twitter Users – an exploration of a few ways that Twitter is being used 

Read the rest of the post on the TwiTip site.

How Does A Bestseller Happen? A Case Study In Reaching #1 On The New York Times

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This post, from Tim Ferriss, originally appeared on his blog on 8/6/07.

Last Friday, the impossible happened and a lifelong dream came true: The 4-Hour Workweekhit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list! Thank you all for your incredible encouragement and support. More unbelievable, this week 4HWW is simultaneously #1 on the NY Times and #1 on the Wall Street Journal business bestseller lists.

How is this possible? How could a book from a first-time author — with no offline advertising or PR — hit both of these lists and stick for three months and counting?

The book was turned down by 13 of 14 editors, and the president of one large book wholesaler even sent me PDFs on historical stats to “reset my expectations”–it could never be a bestseller. The odds seem impossible: there are more than 200,000 books published each year in the US, and less than 5% ever sell more than 5,000 copies. On a given bestseller list, more than 5 spots could be occupied by unbeatable bestsellers like Good to Great or The Tipping Point, which have been on the lists for years.

On a related note, how could a blog that didn’t exist six months ago now be #2,835 on Technorati with 874 incoming links and an Alexa ranking of 9,615?

Is it all luck? I don’t think so. Luck and timing play a (sometimes big) part, but it seems to me that one can still analyze the game and tilt the odds in their favor. I don’t claim to have all of the answers–I still know very little about publishing–but I’ve done enough micro-testing in the last year to fill a lifetime.

The conclusion, in retrospect, is simple… It all came down to learning how to spread a “ meme“, an idea virus that captures imaginations and takes on a life of its own.

First, let’s looks at how the bestseller status unfolded. Here are the stats and timing for all of the bestseller lists the 4HWW has hit since release date on April 24, 2007. [Publetariat Editor’s Note: the stats are lengthy, and can be viewed on Tim Ferriss’ blog via the ‘read the rest’ link below]

Those of you who have been here for a while know that I’m fanatical about analytics and imitating good models (in the business sense, not the Naomi Campbell sense).

Before I began writing 4HWW (I sold it before I wrote it, which I explain here), I cold-contacted and interviewed close to a dozen best-writing authors about their writing processes, followed by close to a dozen best-selling authors about their marketing and PR campaigns.

I asked several questions of the latter group, but one of the assumption-busting homeruns was:

“What were the 1-3 biggest wastes of time and money?”

This led me to create a “not-to-do” list. Number one was no book touring or bookstore signings whatsoever. Not a one. All of the best-selling authors warned against this author rite of passage. I instead focused on the most efficient word-of-mouth networks in the world at the time–blogs. The path to seeding the ideas of 4HWW was then straight-forward:

* Go where bloggers go
* Be there with a message and a story that will appeal to their interests, not yours
* Build and maintain those relationships through your own blog too

These three observations are from PR pundit Steve Rubel’s excellent summary of the 4HWW launch on Micro-Persuasion, titled “The 4-Hour Workweek – Behind the Meme.” Interested to know which events I chose and what the Amazon and Technorati numbers looked like at each step? Check it all out here.

For a good take on my blogging approaches, both as a book author and blog writer, see my multi-part interviews with Darren Rowse over at Problogger.net:
Part 1 – from the day prior to the official publication date (good for seeing how I prepped the market)
Part 2 – from about one weeks ago, after hitting the big lists (good for learning how I’ve built traffic)

4HWW created enough noise online that it was then picked up by offline media ranging from Wired and Outside magazines to Martha Stewart radio and The Today Show. To create a fast-acting meme, I’ve come to believe that you need to do a few things well. Here are the highlights, ordered to recreate the familiar acronym  PPC with a certain Don King-esque flavor:

Read the rest of the post on Tim Ferriss’ blog.

Do I Need To Outline My Plot?

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This post, from Robert Gregory Browne, originally appeared on his Casting the Bones website.

One question I always hear from aspiring writers is, “Do you outline your plots?”

I remember asking this question myself quite a few times, back in the Stone Age when I was typing scripts and stories on my IBM Selectric. If, by some weird stroke of fate, I happened to stumble across an honest to god real published writer (I didn’t do conferences in those days, didn’t know they existed, and there was no Internet), the subject of outlining came up pretty quickly.

Why?

Because, like all aspiring writers, I was always searching for what works. A lot of us look at someone else’s success and think, maybe I should do what they’re doing. Human beings seem to have this unending desire to emulate others in hope that some of the magic dust will rub off on us.

That would explain the thirty billion Star Wars clones that came out in the 1970’s, and the gazillion comic book movies put into production after the Batman and Iron Man franchises took off.

So when Bestselling Author X says he writes using an outline, it’s only natural for aspiring writers to think that they need to outline, too.

I can guarantee you without a moment’s hesitation that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of writing workshops going on in the world at this very moment where the workshop leader is telling his or her students to pull out the index cards and start mapping out their story. And this is NOT BAD advice.

The bad part is when they insist that this is the only way to properly construct a novel or screenplay.

The truth is, there is no one way to do anything in writing.

I was reminded of this in one of the comments from the How to Beat Writer’s Block post. And when I teach classes or do presentations or podcasts with my friend Brett Battles, I always try to remember to tell the audience that.

There is no single way to approach writing.

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Robert Gregory Browne is an AMPAS Nicholl Award-winning screenwriter and novelist, currently under contract to St. Martin’s Press, Droemer Knaur, and Macmillan UK. He’s also published in Russia, Bulgaria and Denmark, and has a story in Lee Child’s crime fiction anthology, KILLER YEAR. He’s a member of MWA, ITW, RWA and is a regular columnist for the Anthony Award nominated writer’s blog, Murderati.

Read the rest of the post on Casting the Bones.

 

Read the rest of the post on Casting the Bones.

Authors: 5 Ways You Can Be Your Own Alchemist

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This post is from The Creative Penn.com: Writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and marketing…for your book.  

Alchemy is the science and art of turning what is base into something precious. It means transformation and renewal, death and rebirth. There are many myths, legends and secrets around alchemy and it has been a creative muse for many people throughout the centuries. 

Here are 5 ways you can be your own alchemist for your writing:

 

  1. Take your darkest and hidden secrets and turn them into nuggets of gold. We all have our dark and dirty memories, but you can turn them into the basis for brilliant writing. It is not about baring your soul, but using what is down there and transforming it. Fictionalise it. Use the lessons to share your wisdom. Your story is original and people want to hear it. You are unique and you can shape that into brilliance.
  2. Edit your work dramatically. Turn your worst writing into something great. Sometimes our writing itself is base and dirty. It needs refining, sometimes drastically. The alchemist used fire to destroy and refine. You may need to be as brutal with your writing to make it into something beautiful.
  3. Transform yourself. Learn, grow and change to develop your self and your writing. “The book you write will change your life” Seth Godin. I truly believe this. The experience of writing a book, whether it is for you alone or for many readers, can transform you into a new person.
  4. Test and refine your methods and works. The alchemists were always looking for new ways to reach The Philosopher’s Stone. To be the one to finally turn lead into gold. They were chemists, scientists always experimenting. You also need to experiment as an author. Learn from failure and continue to move on. Try different techniques and methods. Include new ways of writing as well as book promotion and sales options. This is a lifetime of work, so you have time to make the changes.
  5. Include both spirituality and practicality into your writing. Alchemists have been linked with both the science of chemistry and also esoteric spirituality. Combining both creates a powerful writing career. Authors need to stay in touch with their soul and spirit in order to create and give their energy to the work. But equally, authors need a practical sensibility in order to deal with business, publishing and book promotion. To be entirely focussed on one without the other is useless.

How To Link Your Blog To Your Facebook Profile With Notes

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EDITOR’S NOTE: 7/26/11 – THE "NOTES" APP TO WHICH THIS POST REFERS HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY PORN SPAMMERS. WE THEREFORE NO LONGER RECOMMEND FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THIS POST TO LINK YOUR BLOG TO YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE.

This post, from Coree Silvera, originally appeared on her Market Like A Chick site on 6/7/09. It contains a great how-to for integrating your blog into your Facebook profile, so your blog posts will automatically appear on your Facebook profile page.

Using your blog as your hub is part of a smart and strategic social media marketing plan. I have found that Facebook offers the greatest linking capabilities so far.  Not only can you link your blog in via the Notes Application, but I also use the Facebook Networked Blogs, that gives added exposure.

I know there are female ‘tech geeks” out there, but I am not one of them!  It takes me a little longer to understand how to do these things than most so I’d like to make it easier for other women if at all possible.

I’ve tried to take the steps to add Notes and link your blog in simple language that my female powered brain needs to understand.  Hopefully, other women marketers will be able to understand how simple it is to link your blog to your Facebook profile using the Notes application from these easy steps:

1.You will need to log in to your Facebook account, then go the Notes application page. You’ll see all your friends that use the app listed there.  Click on “Go To Application” button on the left side of the page. 

2.After adding the Notes Application to your profile, click on “Import a blog” under “Notes Settings”.

notes11

If you don’t already know your blog’s RSS feed URL, you will have it memorized soon!  It usually looks something like: “http://www.yourdomain.com/feed”, depending on what type of feed or service you use.   If you don’t know it, just click on the RSS button on your blog and it will take you to the URL that you can then copy. If you use Feedburner you would paste the feed URL they provided you here.

Read the rest of the post on Market Like A Chick. 

Should You Talk About Your Article Or Book Ideas?

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This post, from Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, originally appeared on her Quips and Tips for Successful Writers site on 6/16/09.

Successful writers create new article or book ideas all the time – but do they talk about them before they’re written? Not according to Mario Puzo, Sidney Sheldon, or Ernest Hemingway…

“Never talk about what you are going to do until after you have written it,” said Mario Puzo.

Oops. I’m not only talking about my latest book idea, I’ve actually written about it on my blog (The Adventurous Writer), in Seeking Successful Published Authors. But, the good news is John Steinbeck talked about his book ideas before they were written, too!  Here’s a few quips from published authors about talking about writing – plus some tips. For more in-depth info on getting your ideas published, click on Putting Your Passion Into Print: Get Your Book Published Successfully! by Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry.

Should You Talk About Your Article or Book Ideas?

The quip: “I don’t like to talk about works-in-progress because if I do then it’s on TV 10 weeks later, and it takes me two to three years to write a novel because I do so much rewriting.” – Sidney Sheldon

  • The tip: Okay, we may be successful writers, but most of us aren’t in Sheldon’s league! Even so, many writers fear the possibility that their book or article ideas will show up in a magazine, another writer’s blog, or a book. I believe the chances that someone deliberately steals ideas are slim (plus, you can’t legally fight it because ideas can’t be copyrighted). I also believe in a cosmic karma/common sense flow that leads people to similar ideas at the same time. That is, leads for ideas are floating around in the news, on Twitter, etc – our world is so small, writers are bound to come up with the same ideas at the same time. (To figure out if your idea is valuable, read Tips for Recognizing Great Article Ideas)

The quip: “You lose it if you talk about it.” – Ernest Hemingway

  • The tip: If you talk about your ideas, be selective. Don’t spread your ideas around writers’ forums or on Twitter (oops, I goofed again). Rather, share your ideas with inspiring fellow writers, your writing group, or people you trust. Talking your way through problems with finding sources for articles or plot dilemmas for novels is a great way to find solutions! But, I encourage you to pull a “Hemingway”, and do what works for you.

Read the rest of the post on Quips and Tips for Successful Writers.

Publetariat Vault Update: Nearly There!

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Development work is complete on the Publetariat Vault, the FAQ and Terms of Use are up, and we’re now in the testing phase and on track for launch at the end of June. Whether you’re an indie author seeking mainstream attention or a publishing pro or producer seeking proven literary material for low-risk acquisitions, you’ll want to check out the Vault.

From the Vault’s welcome page:

Publishers and Producers:
The Publetariat Vault is a searchable database of independent literary works for which the authors own all rights free and clear and are interested in selling those rights, with accompanying sales data and reader reviews to take the guesswork out of determining commercial potential in the mass market—and it’s FREE for you to use.
 
 Find independent literary material that is already proven in the marketplace
See actual sales data, and know if the work already has traction
See reader reviews from bookseller sites, reader communities like Goodreads, blogs and elsewhere 
 Search by genre, topic, keyword, recommended reading level and more to find the kind of content you want to acquire
 See author platform pieces, buzz, publicity and more, and know if the author will be an active partner in promotion
 

Indie (Self-Published) Authors:
The Publetariat Vault also provides a groundbreaking service to you: the opportunity to get your indie book in front of the publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for low-risk acquisitions. If you’ve ever thought that if publishers or producers only knew how well your book is selling, how great its reviews are, and what a great job you’re doing to promote both it and yourself, they’d snap up the rights in an instant, then the Vault was made for you. 

 

 – The Vault will initially open only to authors who wish to create listings

 

– The Vault won’t open for pro searches until the 300th listing has been published – ensuring lots of listings for pros to search      
– The first 300 listings to be published will be listed for free for 90 days, beginning on the day the Vault opens for pro searches 

The Publetariat Vault is currently under construction, with a planned launch at the end of June, 2009. Note that member registrations for the Vault will not be processed until the site go-live date, which will be announced on Publetariat, on this site and elsewhere.

See this Publetariat article for more information, or click the links above to check out our FAQ and Terms of Use. Click here to view a blank listing form, here to view a sample published listing, and here to view the search form publishing pros and content producers will use.

 

 

 

 

Free Books And Ebooks And Promos, Oh My!

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This piece, from Alan Baxter, originally appeared on Publishing Renaissance on 6/14/09.

When I first started self producing my novels as POD trade paperbacks I was against ebooks. This is back in the dark ages, around 2006. My thinking was, “I want people to buy my books, therefore I’m only going to produce actual books!” If I could go back in time I’d give myself a solid slap upside the ear.

The simple truth is that POD trade paperbacks, even bloody good ones like mine, are still more expensive than their mass produced counterparts. You can buy my book on Amazon for around $15 or you can buy something by Neil Gaiman for $8, or that awful Twilight rubbish at around $5 or $6. Obviously, these low prices are for paperbacks, smaller and of lighter paperstock than POD trades, but that’s beside the point. The consumer is usually happy to buy books in a variety of formats if the price is right and if they’re really keen to read the them.

Therein lies the rub. Convincing people that my books are really worth reading is the hardest part of indie publishing, especially when they cost around $15. I currently have two novels out – RealmShift and MageSign. Neither of them have yet received a bad review – a few negative or lukewarm comments in otherwise positive reviews is as bad as it gets. I don’t think they’ve ever been reviewed at less than 3 out of 5. I’m ecstatic about that and it proves to me that people think my books are as good as I do. But it’s still hard to convince the buying public to give them a go. As indie publishers we’re always going to be hard up against three primary walls of resistance:

1. The recognised author name
2. The trusted publisher brand
3. The low price of light stock paperbacks

The price is something that we’re always going to struggle with. The recognised author is something we hope to become, but in the meantime have to struggle against. The trusted publisher is something that is becoming less and less of an issue. In all honesty, how many people check up on the publisher before buying a book? How many people would decide against a purchase on the grounds of not knowing the publisher? But whether that affects a buyer’s decision or not, that publisher will always have the massive marketing department and distribution reach that we can only dream of. So what to do?

Well, we have to embrace the new. Big trad houses are just starting to get on board with the idea that ebooks are becoming more popular. The Kindle 2 from Amazon has recently been released, the Sony Reader is very popular outside the US, the iPhone has a Kindle app. My novels are now selling better in Kindle editions than any other format. The trouble with the big houses is that they’re still charging at least $10 for an ebook. Talk about missing the point! My books are $3.19 on Kindle and $3.50 at Smashwords and I thought THAT might be a bit overpriced. But they’re selling and that means people are reading my books, hopefully enjoying them and, also hopefully, telling friends and colleagues all about them. So my writing and my name are being disseminated among a larger audience.

Read the rest of the post on Publishing Renaissance.

The Dreaded Author Platform

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This post, from literary agent Rachelle Gardner, originally appeared on her Rants & Ramblings On Life As A Literary Agent blog on 6/15/09.

Last week at the Write-To-Publish conference, the one topic that kept coming up in conversations, panels, and workshops was AUTHOR PLATFORM. Yes, the hated p-word!

I explained again and again that publishing just ain’t what it used to be. Gone are the days when publishers were solely responsible for the marketing of a book.

Today’s audience is more segmented than it has ever been before. People have more options for their leisure time than ever before – 600 channels on television, movies on demand, video games and Wii, and then of course, the Internet. It’s harder than ever to attract people to books. The way to do it is increasingly through personal connection, and that means YOU, the author, making connections with your readers.

(This discussion applies mostly to non-fiction writers, but you novelists, take note. It will help you, too, if you want strong sales on your book.)

It has never been more crucial for authors to play a major part in marketing themselves, BUT it has never been easier. Where are readers hanging out these days? The Internet. That’s the best place for you to find readers for your books.

The Internet has leveled the playing field. With a well-written and compelling blog, you have the potential to build a significant platform. If you take the time to research website optimization and do everything recommended to build traffic on your blog, you can build a sizable audience in a matter of months. Then when you begin to use Twitter and Facebook strategically, you can grow your audience exponentially.

You can, and you must.
 

Read the rest of the post on Rachelle Gardner’s Rants & Ramblings On Life As A Literary Agent blog.

Amazon Kindle Numbers

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This post, from bestselling mainstream author J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 6/11/09.

Elsewhere on the Internets, people have been referring to my previous posts about the Amazon Kindle (here and here) and one of the things they were interested in is numbers.

So here they are. Thoughts, explanations, and predictions to follow.


AFRAID by Jack Kilborn, a horror novel, was released on the Kindle on April 1. During the first month of its release, it was available for $1.99 on Kindle. During that month, it sold over 10,400 copies.

SERIAL by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch was released for free on the Kindle May 20th. It’s a horror novella. As of June 10, it has been downloaded on Kindle more than 34,000 times. SERIAL also appears on www.blakecrouch.com, and has had 12,000 downloads, along with 7000 downloads from the Sony Reader website.

Both AFRAID and SERIAL were released by my publisher, Grand Central. They promoted both titles on Amazon using sidebars on Amazon.com, and on the Amazon Kindle blog.

On April 8th, I began to upload my own books to Kindle. As of today, June 11, at 11:40am, here is how many copies I’ve sold, and how much they’ve earned.

THE LIST, a technothriller/police procedural novel, is my biggest seller to date, with 1612 copies sold. Since April this has earned $1081.75. I originally priced it at $1.49, and then raised it to $1.89 this month to see if the sales would slow down. The sales sped up instead.

ORIGIN, a technothriller/horror occult adventure novel, is in second place, with 1096 copies sold and $690.18. As with The List and my other Kindle novels, I upped the price to $1.89.

SUCKERS is a thriller/comedy/horror novella I wrote with Jeff Strand. It also includes some Konrath and Strand short stories. 449 copies, $306.60.

DISTURB is a medical thriller. 371 copies, $234.21.

SHOT OF TEQUILA is a crime novel featuring Jack Daniels. 342 copies, $164.02.

55 PROOF is a collection of 55 short stories. 217 copies, $138.99.

PLANTER’S PUNCH is a Jack Daniels novella I co-wrote with Tom Schreck. 154 copies, $107.10.

DIRTY JOKES & VULGAR POEMS is a collection of over 1000 of my Twitters, one-liners, and funny poems. 37 copies sold, $18.57.

So far on Kindle I’ve earned $2781.35 in 64 days.

PRICING: I’ve kept my collaborations priced at $1.59, and upped my other books to $1.89. Also, I reduced the price of my poetry collection to 80 cents.

What I’ve learned about pricing: Not much. I went on some Kindle forums and asked what the magic price point is, and got answers ranging between free and five bucks.

I’ve kept my books under two bucks for several reasons. First, because my intent is to use these books to hook readers and get them to buy my other, in-print titles. I give these same books away on my website for free, so charging Kindle users more than a few bucks doesn’t seem fair.

That said, raising the price from $1.59 to $1.89 didn’t cause any drop in sales or Amazon ranking. In fact, my Kindle numbers have been steadily going up.

I don’t know what the perfect combination of price/profit is… yet. Authors make 35% of their suggested retail price (Amazon then discounts this.) So I can raise the price, sell fewer books, but still make a greater profit.

For me, however, this isn’t all about profit. It’s about units sold. Which also gets confusing.
 

Read the rest of the post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

Kindle DX Image Test

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This is a cross-posting of a piece from Joshua Tallent which originally appeared on his Kindle Formatting blog on 6/14/09. In it, he explores the display and formatting differences between the Kindle and the Kindle DX, with an eye to helping authors avoid any pitfalls in formatting their manuscripts for Kindle publication.

In my book, Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide, I cover a broad range of formatting information and tips, with examples of HTML code that can be effectively used in Kindle books to create the best display possible on the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2. I bought the new Kindle DX last week, and after some extensive testing I would like to share with you some information on the formatting differences between it and the other Kindle devices.

There are actually not too many formatting differences between the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. The basic paragraph formatting is the same, the text indents are the same, and the specialized formatting I discuss in my book for creating outlines and poetry all works the same. It does not appear that Amazon has made any changes to the default text formatting on the Kindle DX like they did on the Kindle 2.

The only change that will make a large impact on anyone developing books for the Kindle DX is the screen size and how images are displayed on the device. I discuss image dimensions on the K1 and K2 in Chapter 5 of my book:

There has been a lot of talk on the Kindle DTP forums about what dimensions an image should be to take full advantage of the available screen real estate. The consensus opinion, and the response stated by the DTP admin, has been that 450 pixels wide by 550 pixels high (a ratio of 9:11) is the proper scale. In the course of my formatting work and testing I have found that there is a little bit more to the story than that.

The actual size of the viewable book area on the Kindle 1 screen is 524px × 640px, and the viewable book area on the Kindle 2 screen is 520px × 622px. Any images larger or smaller than that (including those sized 450px × 550px) will be automatically re-sized until the width or height fits the viewable book area. At 261px × 319px on Kindle 1 and 260px × 311px on Kindle 2 (half the size of the viewable book area) the image is no longer resized to fit the book area’s width or height.

This is important when you are creating logos or other small images for your book. Logos usually look great when sized around 75–100px wide. However, images will still lose some quality when reduced in size, especially photos. I suggest that you keep your images at the Kindle 2 dimensions (520px × 622px) if you can, so that your image quality does not suffer.

Since the Kindle devices all allow image zooming, you could also create images for the K1 and K2 that are 600px × 800px with the instruction that users click on them to zoom in and see the images full-screen. That is not practical in books that have a large number of images, but it would be useful for books with detailed maps or graphics that make a big difference to the content of the book.

Like the K1 and K2, the Kindle DX has specific image dimension restrictions of which every eBook creator should be aware. The DX screen is 824 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high, and the viewable book area on the DX is 744px wide by 1022px high. The DX also has the same automatic up-scaling feature present in the K1 and K2, so all images larger than 372px × 511px will be automatically re-sized to fill the width or length of the viewable area. That applies equally to images made for K1 and K2 books, which are displayed on the DX with a noticeable decrease in image quality.

That leads me to my current frustration and to a very large problem with the current publication process at Amazon. The default format for books on all three Kindles is the Mobipocket eBook format. When you upload a Word document, PDF, or HTML file to the Digital Text Platform (DTP), the system runs Mobigen (the command-line version of Mobipocket Creator) on the file and generates a PRC/MOBI/AZW file that can be read on the Kindle. The same process is activated when you send a file to your Kindle using its e-mail address.

Because the DTP will automatically create a Mobipocket file based on the file you upload, it is always best to create and upload a Mobipocket file yourself. In addition to giving you better control over and knowledge of the book’s formatting, uploading a Mobi file gives you the ability to add a cover image that automatically zooms on the K2 and DX, and it gives you the ability to create waypoints in the Location Bar on those devices, making navigation between chapters as easy as a right- or left-click on the joystick. I cover the details of creating a Mobipocket file with these additional features in Chapter 7 of my book.

However, Mobipocket Creator and Mobigen both reduce the size (and, by necessity, the quality) of images when embedding them in a Mobipocket file. That function was apparently included in the days when Mobipocket books were being read on small Palm-like devices that could not handle large, high-quality images or large file sizes. Images that are the proper dimensions for the Kindle DX screen are automatically re-sized whenever you generate a Mobipocket file. This function cannot be overridden, and is not related to the compression option you can set in the two programs.

The only way I have found around this automatic re-sizing is to generate the Mobipocket file using the any2mobi command line tool provided with calibre. This tool does not re-size the images when it creates the Mobi file, so the quality of the images does not suffer. If you have calibre installed, calling the any2mobi command is very easy. You can run it on an HTML, OPF, or ePub file, or on a file in any of the other supported formats. You could even create your OPF file using Mobipocket Creator, then create the mobi file using any2mobi.

imgThe re-sizing error in Mobipocket Creator and Mobigen brings an important additional side effect into the picture. Because Amazon uses Mobigen behind-the-scenes to create practically all of the books that are for sale on the Kindle store, there are currently no books on the Kindle store that are actually developed specifically for the Kindle DX. In effect, the "Optimized for Kindle DX" icon we have seen cropping up lately is useless. I downloaded samples of many of these books to my DX and found that their images all suffer from the re-sizing/compression issue.

This issue also highlights the problem with selling one book file for use on every eBook device. While the goal of a universal eBook file is great, reality has not yet caught up with desire, even in the ePub ecosystem. Because every device is different, there is still a lot of value in giving users a file that is formatted specifically for their device. This is especially true of devices that have extraordinarily large or small screens, or devices that have display limitations. Amazon has a unique opportunity here to allow publishers and authors the ability to target book files at specific devices. What works well on the K2 may not work as well on the DX, and vice versa. Since Amazon knows what device a file is being sent to, they could set up the system to deliver an optimized book file for the device chosen. That would allow content providers to upload optimized books to the Amazon server with the intent of giving users the best possible reading experience. Whether Amazon adjusts the system to do that or not is up in the air, but I think it would go a long way toward increasing the real and perceived value of eBooks.

Another problem with the way the Kindle devices currently handle images is the automatic up-scaling of images larger than half the viewable screen width. This function creates a lot of confusion about the actual screen real estate available, and, by necessity, it makes small images grainy and pixelated. If you have to make a 200 pixel wide logo 100 pixels wide just to make sure it does not take up the whole screen on the Kindle 2, the logo is going to lose a lot of quality. The resolution of Kindle E Ink screen is 167 pixels per inch, much better than just about any computer monitor available. Images in Kindle books should be allowed to take advantage of that amazing resolution and to take up consistent space on the screen, giving content creators more flexibility in designing eBooks that look great and provide the best reader experience possible.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that Amazon releases updated versions of Mobipocket Creator and Mobigen, and that they remedy the issues with optimized eBook files and image up-scaling. As always, I will be closely watching the Kindle format, and I will keep you up-to-date if anything changes.

Hat tip to John at Reader Plates for the calibre solution.

Joshua Tallent is the author of Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide, the founder of KindleFormatting.com, and a Kindle publishing and formatting consultant.

Creating Believable Middle Grade and Young Adult Characters

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This article, by Laura Backes, is a cross-posting of a piece which appeared on The CBI Clubhouse on 5/19/09.

How to reach older readers with characters that are believable, bold and memorable.

When you search for a novel to read, do you hope to find a story about someone exactly like yourself? That first glimmer of recognition might be intriguing, but after several pages you’d probably get bored. Adults read for entertainment, escape, and to get glimpses of lives different from their own. If the main character is too ordinary or familiar, the story won’t hold any surprises. You already know how it ends.

Middle grade and young adult readers are no different. They want to identify strongly with the characters in their books, and understand those characters’ problems. But they also need the characters to be a bit bigger, braver, or smarter than themselves. The problems must be more dramatic than the readers’ own, the stakes higher. Tension builds when protagonists act more impulsively, foolhardy or selfishly than the reader would ever do. Novels for older readers portray a magnified version of real life.

Even though the characters and their situations might be drawn more sharply in fiction than in reality, they still have to be believable. The reader must be certain that these people could actually exist. The protagonist, however troubled, must be sympathetic enough for the reader to care about his or her problems. Including underlying universal themes of adolescence connects the reader on an emotional level.

Consider Lucy the Giant, a young adult novel by Sherri L. Smith. At over six feet tall, Lucy is literally bigger than her peers. Her size is in sharp contrast to the small Alaskan town where she lives. Lucy’s greatest desire is to fit in, a yearning familiar to most readers. One day, tired of dragging her alcoholic father home from the bars at night and enduring the taunts of her classmates and pitying glances from adults in town, Lucy runs away to Kodiak Island. Mistaken for an adult, she gets a job on a crabbing boat, where Lucy finds adventure, a family of sorts, and even has a near-death experience that teaches her running away from problems is never the answer.

It’s unusual for an adventure story to feature a female protagonist, but virtually every teen will recognize part of him or herself in Lucy. Lucy’s mother abandoned her at age seven, and Lucy spends much of the book blaming her parents for her problems. This is understandable, but what makes Lucy more resilient than an average teen is that she decides to take responsibility for her own life. At age 15, Lucy–already incredibly brave, physically strong, and carrying heavy emotional baggage–grows up.

It’s this “growing up” that marks a young adult character. They enter the story from the world of adolescence, and emerge with tools they’ll carry into adulthood. Though the reader might not make that journey as quickly or completely, he or she need examples of teens who did. If 13-year-old Brian Robeson from Hatchet by Gary Paulsen can survive by himself for 54 days on a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, then surely the reader can hope to survive junior high.

Middle grade readers also love characters who face situations that are more dramatic than their own. These characters learn lessons about life or how the world works, but in the end are still content to remain adolescents for a few more years. In middle grade books, the characters who often unwittingly provide the drama simply by being themselves.

Polly Horvath is a master at creating quirky, complex, funny characters who spin the plot in a new direction simply by entering a scene. Horvath pays special attention to the adults who inhabit the worlds of her child characters (The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle are my two favorites). Richard Peck does the same thing in his award-winning historical novels A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder. Both authors have created child viewpoint characters who are dealing with everything from surviving a summer visit with Grandma to waiting for Mom and Dad to show up after their boats were lost at sea. But the stories get their sparks from larger-than-life adult characters. The humor, and the deeper meanings of these books, comes from the children gaining deeper understanding of the eccentric adults in their lives.

When you’re developing characters for your middle grade or young adult novel, start with qualities readers will see in themselves. Then raise the stakes and see how your character reacts. Make her six feet tall. Strand a boy with no wilderness experience on an island with nothing but a hatchet. Send some city kids to spend two weeks in a small town with a crotchety grandmother. Shake up an ordinary family by dropping in an aunt from another country who spins tall tales that just might be true. Go just beyond your own experience, and that of your readers, and think big.

 

 

CBI Publisher Laura Backes has experience as an editor and literary agent, and has been published herself by Random House, Writer’s Digest and The Writer, among many others. She was Technical Editor of Writing Children’s Books for Dummies and is the co-founder of the acclaimed Children’s Author’s Bootcamp workshops.

 The CBI Clubhouse is the online home for Children’s Book Insider readers and the ultimate learning & sharing spot for children’s writers, packed with articles, audio, video and fellowship with writers worldwide.

What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes

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This article, by Steve Outing and Laura Ruel, originally appeared on Eyetrack III. While the article is geared toward the designers of news websites, it provides invaluable insight into how visitors’ eyes track across any website—information you can put to use when designing or redesigning your own website or blog.

News websites have been with us for about a decade, and editors and designers still struggle with many unanswered questions: Is homepage layout effective? … What effect do blurbs on the homepage have compared to headlines? … When is multimedia appropriate? … Are ads placed where they will be seen by the audience?

The Eyetrack III research released by The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools could help answer those questions and more. Eyetracking research like this won’t provide THE answer to those questions. But combined with other site metrics already used by news website managers — usability testing, focus groups, log analysis — the Eyetrack III findings could provide some direction for improving news websites.

In Eyetrack III, we observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content. In this article we’ll provide an overview of what we observed. You can dive into detailed Eyetrack III findings and observations on this website — use the navigation at the top and left of this page — at any time. If you don’t know what eyetracking is, get oriented by reading the Eyetrack III FAQ.

Let’s get to the key results of the study, but first, a quick comment on what this study is and is not: It is a preliminary study of several dozen people conducted in San Francisco. It is not an exhaustive exploration that we can extrapolate to the larger population. It is a mix of "findings" based on controlled variables, and "observations" where testing was not as tightly controlled. The researchers went "wide," not "deep" — covering a lot of ground in terms of website design and multimedia factors. We hope that Eyetrack III is not seen as an end in itself, but rather as the beginning of a wave of eyetracking research that will benefit the news industry. OK, let’s begin. …

At the core: Homepage layout

While testing our participants’ eye movements across several news homepage designs, Eyetrack III researchers noticed a common pattern: The eyes most often fixated first in the upper left of the page, then hovered in that area before going left to right. Only after perusing the top portion of the page for some time did their eyes explore further down the page.

 

How a typical site visitor's eyes move across a web page

(image copyright Eyetrack III, The Poynter Institute)

Depending on page layout, of course, this pattern can vary. The image above is a simplistic representation of the most common eye-movement pattern we noticed across multiple homepage designs. (In other words, don’t take what you see above too seriously.)

Now also consider another Eyetrack observation: Dominant headlines most often draw the eye first upon entering the page — especially when they are in the upper left, and most often (but not always) when in the upper right. Photographs, contrary to what you might expect (and contrary to findings of 1990 Poynter eyetracking research on print newspapers), aren’t typically the entry point to a homepage. Text rules on the PC screen — both in order viewed and in overall time spent looking at it.

A quick review of 25 large news websites — here’s a list of them — reveals that 20 of them place the dominant homepage image in the upper left. (Most news sites have a consistent page design from day to day; they don’t often vary the layout as a print newspaper would.)

We observed that with news homepages, readers’ instincts are to first look at the flag/logo and top headlines in the upper left. The graphic below shows the zones of importance we formulated from the Eyetrack data. While each site is different, you might look at your own website and see what content you have in which zones.

Read the rest of the article on Eyetrack III.

An Author's Field Guide To Internet Trolls

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This is a cross-posting of an entry from my Indie Author blog, dated 6/8/09.

‘Author Platform’ is the buzzphrase of the moment. If you’re doing a good job of creating and maintaining that all-important communication channel between yourself and the public, it’s only a matter of time before the web trolls descend upon you to ruin things for everyone.

Herewith, I present a relevant excerpt from Ms. Gertrude Strumpf-Hollingsworth’s “Encyclopedia of Annoyances, Bothers and Frustrations”, which provides a valuable natural history lesson in the identification and management of the species most likely to darken an author’s virtual doorstep. 

Introduction

The Internet Troll (webicus infuriatum) is a hardy, highly adaptable family of parasites with established populations all over the web. Most leading Techno-Naturalists classify it as a viral organism due the fact that it reproduces by infecting members of targeted populations. Once exposed to webicus, susceptible individuals soon display the aggression, vitriol and boorishness which are the identifying hallmarks of all Trolls.

Hiding behind a pseudonym, webicus will quickly become the dominant element in any online ecosystem which provides it with a steady supply of attention and argument. In fact, webicus is so skilled in monopolizing these resources that it frequently drives off larger, but more peaceable, local populations. While all Trolls are destructive, there are perhaps none so pernicious as the subspecies which target author websites and online writer communities. Armed with a voluble nature and much larger vocabularies than other Trolls, these are particularly troublesome. 

The Queen Bee/King Drone (lordicus cliqueium)

Behavior: Lordicus begins by befriending charter members and site owner/administrators alike with its initial friendliness and offers of assistance. With favors banked and loyalties established, lordicus reveals its true nature when another community member voices a dissenting view, or becomes as well-liked as lordicus. In either case, lordicus and its followers close ranks to attack or freeze out the other member, claiming to speak on behalf of the entire community.

Control: The only effective method of lordicus control is a strongly-worded email from the site owner or administrator. Lordicus’ response is invariably a dramatic, martyred leave-taking from the site, after which it will continue to lurk and foment dissention among other members via off-site communications.

Identifying Call: A shrill, “Who do you think you are?”, sometimes followed by a low-pitched, “Nobody cares what you think, anyway.” 

The Puffed Pedant (self-importantia verbosia)

Behavior: Self-importantia is known for its lengthy, patronizing deconstructions of other members’ writing, in which it takes great pleasure in pointing out every broken rule of grammar, plotting, characterization and the like, regardless of whether or not said rules were broken intentionally, as a stylistic choice. Given that s.i. is never a published author in its own right, one might expect other community members to routinely disregard its remarks. However, s.i. posts with such smug conviction that it effects a sort of Jedi Mind Trick on the least experienced and most gullible members of the community.

Control: Since s.i. doesn’t technically overstep a site’s Terms of Service, there’s little the site owner/admin can do to put a stop to its antics. It was once thought that exposing the Pedant to the works of Kurt Vonnegut or Anthony Burgess would humble and silence the creature, but field studies have proven it will merely label such works “the exception that proves the rule” and emerge both unscathed and uneducated by the experience. Depriving s.i. of the attention, argument, and writing samples it craves usually proves more effective.

Identifying Call: A repetitive, clucking, “Do your homework.”  

The Prickly Recluse (hypersensitivium rex)

Behavior: This species is known for its uncanny ability to incorrectly interpret the tone or meaning of any other member posts, regardless of how innocuous those posts may be, invariably choosing the most negative or insulting meaning possible and taking that meaning entirely personally. From there, hypersensitivium will repeat and repost its incorrect interpretation in an effort to rally support and sympathy for itself.

Control: First-time victims generally interpret the Recluse’s behavior as innocent misunderstanding, and will usually attempt to resolve the matter with an apologetic, clarifying post. However, since hypersensitivium will misinterpret the palliative post as well, such efforts are destined to fail. A warning post or email from the site administrator will generate one last, self-pitying post from the Recluse, followed by several weeks of absence from the site. It is from this latter behavior that the Recluse gets its name. 

Identifying Call: A sharp, striking, "How dare you!" 

The PubPro Mimic (wannabeum knowitallia)

Behavior: This type of Troll masquerades as a publishing industry professional with many years of relevant experience, yet never offers any proof of its claims and simply ignores all requests for such. Nevertheless, using its supposed trove of expertise as bait, wannabeum easily attracts a cadre of insecure writers looking for a “secret handshake” or other insider knowledge that might give them an edge in getting published.

Since wannabeum lacks the expertise to which it lays claim, its haughty assertions about writing, getting an agent, publishing and bookselling are largely false. Even so, any attempt to correct the Mimic directly, or even to merely post an alternative viewpoint, will backfire in a firestorm of belittling recriminations from the Mimic, which will rely on its claimed expertise as all the support or proof its posts require.

Control: Catching wannabeum in a resumé lie will cause it to immediately vacate a site, but this is nearly impossible since wannabeum never posts under its real name and is careful to keep the identifying details of its claimed career experience vague.

Identifying Call: “If you’d worked in the publishing business for as many years as I have, you’d know how ridiculous you sound.”

The Equalizer (evenus stevenus)

Behavior: Evenus is the self-appointed score keeper and referee of any community it inhabits. Evenus keeps constant track of who has shared good or bad news, who has posted congratulations or sympathy, and whether or not such congratulations or sympathies are adequately effusive and timely. Anyone failing to pass the Equalizer’s test is subjected to the same kind of freeze-out favored by the Queen Bee / King Drone, but unlike that species, the Equalizer keeps the impetus behind its attack secret for as long as possible. Often, Evenus deprives its victims of this information for so long that another member of Evenus’ circle is ultimately the one to reveal it.

Control: As with the Puffed Pedant, since Evenus doesn’t technically break any site’s Terms of Service, little can be done to discourage it. One can either ignore Evenus or strive to steer clear of it.

Identifying Call: frosty silence.
 

The Sock Puppet Master (bittera duplicator)

Behavior: Perhaps the most pathetic of all the Troll species which favor author communities and websites, bittera creates its own support network by setting up multiple user accounts. It uses these accounts to create negative or attacking posts about others and their work, then uses its other accounts to second its own opinions in a masturbatory fashion.

Control: No specific action is necessary. Bittera will eventually reveal itself as a fraud by losing track of its various aliases, posting in the tone or style of one persona while logged in as another. Once exposed, this Troll will immediately delete all of its past posts, close its many accounts and move on to a new site. It may reappear months later to set up a new collection of accounts and aliases, but only when it’s sure its past activities have been forgotten.

Identifying Call: mockingbird-like repetition of, and agreement with, anything posted under any of its many aliases.

The Fake Friendly (condescendiosa passive-aggressivium)

Behavior: This Troll openly attacks and insults authors and their work, and when called to account for its unacceptable behavior, claims its remarks have been misinterpreted and it meant no offense.

For example, in a thread about the merits of giving away free ebook copies as a promotional gambit, following the post of a member extolling the virtues of free ebook copies, it may post, “If your book was any good, you wouldn’t have to give it away.” When the other member responds with understandable anger and offense, the Fake Friendly will defend itself by retreating behind a response along the lines of, “I didn’t say your book actually is no good, I’m just saying that you deserve to be paid for quality work.”

Condescendiosa can keep this back-and-forth dance of insults and re-interpretation going indefinitely, but its most maddening behavior is its penchant for claiming the moral high ground by recasting its abuse as simple, well-meaning honesty, which it says others can’t tolerate on account of being overly sensitive.

Control: Much like the Sock Puppet Master, this type of Troll is always the cause of its own undoing. As it slashes and burns its way through the community, systematically training its disingenuous focus on member after member, condescendiosa eventually finds it has more enemies than cohorts and vacates the premises.

Identifying Call: “You’ll never make it as a writer if you don’t develop a thicker skin,” and “I don’t know what you’re so upset about.”
 

April L. Hamilton is an author and the founder of Publetariat.