Getting Published: Notice A Trend Is Now in Print (and eBook)

Well, after a few hurdles I got the blogging essay collection uploaded to Kindle Direct (I wanted to try IngramSpark as a comparison but wasn't in the mood at the moment)...

Notice a Trend: 17 Years of Prime Blogging is now for sale!

All because I had award-winning blog articles from the Florida Writers Association's Royal Palm Awards - see the gold sticker! - and needed a print book to put the award stickers.

The hurdles involved as always: 

1) hiring someone to make the book cover. I went to Fiverr again and found cover designer Olinart who suggested a different approach that looked cleaner and fit the theme of the book better.

2) hiring someone to format the book for publication, because in spite of my years of writing and my background in journalism I still can't get the damn margins and book gutters (that space between printed pages where the bindery keeps it all together) figured out to a 6" x 9" alignment. PLUS getting the footnotes squeezed into the PDF was a headache, and this book on blogging - where the links to articles backing up your arguments normally go - won't go anywhere without proper citing.

Formatting to publication for fiction works seems pretty straightforward as a lot of designers offer to do that. Formatting non-fiction was a harder get, so I ended up going to a site called Reedsy where I sent out requests and got one back from Michael Vito T. who got the margins done, spaced pages to make it fit, and tweaked the fonts.

It still costs out of pocket to get these things done, but it's a far better - and more budget-friendly - method than dealing with Print-On-Demand services.

The eBook on Kindle is ready to go. The print paperback will take another three days for market. I'll amend this article when I'm sure the ISBN numbers are set.

Maybe with a fiction book I will attempt to publish via IngramSpark that way and test how that goes.

P.S. Funny Locations is doing well and I hope to find more short story fans!  

Final Touches on the Greatest Hits Book

A print copy of this blog's greatest hits is in the final stages.

I hired an editor through Reedsy to format the book for IngramSpark submission - I just couldn't figure out getting the gutters aligned! - both paperback and eBook, and I already had the cover done through Fiverr.

Should see the book on the market mid-May, just as I'll be heading to the FLA annual conference.

We'll see how it goes.

Quick Apology: December 2023 Edition

I did quiet down on my blogging this November in order to focus on my NaNo writing - which I got to 50,000 words but it's a mess - but I was also working on getting a new collection of short stories published so I am still a bit distracted by that even though most of the work is done.

Cover by M.A. Rehman at Fiverr

Details to follow once the paperback is officially on market.

Update: As of this afternoon, the paperback and ebook are available on Amazon.

It's a collection of stories since my college (1990s) days in Gainesville, and from my time in South Florida, and my time in the Tampa Bay area as I moved from workplace to workplace. I've written in various genres - fantasy, science fiction, horror, coming of age, thriller, mystery - but one of the running elements has been - hopefully - a sense of humor throughout. Growing up to Douglas Adams, Catch-22, and Doonesbury comic strips didn't help. 

In putting this book together, I decided to focus on the more humor-oriented stories and following a theme - for the most part - around locations. Given my Florida background, obviously a lot of these stories are based in the Sunshine State, but I've added stories based in Las Vegas, New York City, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Even a couple of places I've been to personally. Heh.

Wish me luck. I hope I find a readership.

I'll get back to blogging soon.

Working On a Greatest Hits Album

Trying to go back through more than 13 years of political blogging to filter down enough articles to publish as a book is tough going.

I tried looking at pulling together as much of the stuff I'd blogged - hell, still blogging - about the nightmarish trump years, but I ended up with over 700 pages of the first draft, and an aggressive weeding still left me around 450 pages. If I'm trying to find an audience, overwhelming them with something the bulk and weight of a British encyclopedia is not the way to go. Even academic libraries will avoid ordering a copy.

So I decided to go through and do a Greatest Hits collection of the best blog articles I've done since 2006, except THAT was getting to 400 pages and I hadn't even gotten into 2019 at that point (my growing habit of writing long essays to impress the judges starts getting worse that year). Part of the problem was that I kept including extra blog articles to provide context to ongoing political issues or scandals I had been covering. /sigh

So, third stage of the project: I'm just going to limit myself. Just going to say "Thirty best articles, no matter what." If I need to provide context, I can add Author's introductory abstracts where needed. Just focus and get the good stuff to the readers.

Sorry for the distractions otherwise. If anything major happens on the trumpian front - say, more indictments - I will jump on that shit and blog some more stuff to add to the sequel book I've got planned BWHAHAHAHA.

In the meantime, any suggestions for a decent book title?

Update: Okay, I found my 30 articles. Page count at a respectable 159 right now. Anything I add for context shouldn't put me over 200 pages, so this is good. Still need a decent book title.

Upcoming Projects for 2023

Couple of personal notes intermixed with the blogging: 

Driven by the need to have a printed book to apply Royal Palm Literary Award stickers on the covers, I will be putting together key articles from this blog for publication. I did it before with Surviving the Age of Obstruction back in 2016, and I figure a good follow-up to that would be articles about the rise of trump and the destruction he wrought upon the world for 6-plus years.

...

I shall not use the obvious title "Surviving the Eternal Shitgibbon" since I don't own the trademark on "Shitgibbon," so I DO need a better title to market the damn thing. The subtitle "A Diary of the Trump Years" I think is unavoidable.

I may pull the first book from print, though. It never sold - it had to be the weak title I gave it, and publishing through a bad POD service didn't help - and I want to start fresh.

The other project on my mind is writing a book on American -Isms. Having blogged a bit about libertarianism and pragmatism, I figure I need to define the other major -isms - liberalism, conservatism, socialism, fascism, populism, racism - in our nation's political forums. I want to do this for my niece and nephews, all of whom are in their early 20s and I worry about the disinformation floating out there threatening to suck their brains dry.

So I may be busy this Saturnalian weekend as well as the early months of 2023 getting projects done.

I do know I need to keep blogging here. After all, tomorrow Monday promises to be a busy day.

About That Royal Palm Literary Award Thing 2022 Edition

I kind of realize I didn't dedicate a full article here about the Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Awards given out back in late October. I was a Finalist with two articles - "Hark! A Ranking of Nirvana Albums" and "Irrational" - and so I went to the awards banquet with guarded hopes.

"Irrational" won the Silver (second place) trophy!

Florida Writers Association then sent me a set of award stickers I can use to stick to the book(s) that had won!

Except what had won was an online blog article. There's nothing I can stick the stickers to (unless I can sticker every computer monitor out there).

I mean, I do have books I can put stickers to - my story anthology collection Last of the Grapefruit Wars, any of the Strangely Funny anthologies I'm in, the nonfiction essays of Surviving the Age of Obstruction... except those aren't the things that won. It'd feel wrong to sticker those.

Also, the books I self-published through the POD service - Grapefruit Wars and Surviving the Age - are years old, and just not selling (as a librarian, I've confronted the sad fact I have to weed out my Surviving the Age book because no one's checked it out since 2018). I've been thinking of cancelling those books altogether, and redoing what I had published into something else.

I *could* gather more of this blog's articles together to print in a book, but I'd need a unifying theme to bind them together, rather than a loose collection of random thoughts. It'd be nice to include the "Irrational" article with it, to justify adding the stickers.

I am serious asking the nine people I've got following this blog, the few who actually pay attention: Any suggestions on what articles to collect and print?

Personal Note About My Latest Book

Well, I double-checked with the XLibris publisher about the release of Surviving the Age Of Obstruction: Notes from the Obama Years about whether it will come with an ebook version.

Turns out the package I purchased - which got revised from when I originally bought it in 2004, never sit on these things people it goes bad on ya - was for the Softcover version only. You'd think it'd be easy to convert to an ebook format, but apparently not.

This doesn't entirely make sense, though. I'd thought I bought a package that covers it. I'm going to follow up on this.

Poll: Throwing Out Book Title Ideas

I've mentioned once or twice before that I'm putting some of the essays I've written here - good lord, I'm almost to the 10-year anniversary - into a collection for print as a book. I decided to use the stuff I've written about Obama, his administration, and his tenure against a wall of GOP obstructionism that future historians may want views on.

As such, I'm a little stumped for a possible title for the work, so I'd like to waste more time creating a survey and asking all seven blog followers to tell me what looks SHINY AND CHROME and what is MEDIOCRE.

Create your own user feedback survey

I've wrapped up a few of the other writing projects I've been juggling - the story to Florida Writers Association, getting something published to teach the self-publish class I taught last week at the library, etc. - so I have time to finish collecting and editing the essays (also adding endnotes to cover the fact print books don't link to websites of info) hopefully by next month.

Oh, and I'll need to hire a cover artist. If there's a cartoonist who can draw Obama standing atop a pile of GOP elephants whilst waving the American flag and flashing the Vulcan salute, I'll pay about $49.95 for the cover rights...

Update: Creating an alphabetical index in OpenOffice Writer is messier than it looks.

On A Personal Note: My Writing Side

While I posted this on my writer's blog, I want to pass a couple of notes along over here as well:

I will attend a Local Authors book sale/signing event at the Barnes & Noble store in Wesley Chapel FL this coming Saturday May 21st from 2-4 PM. I'll have print copies of various works on display for sale and autographs, sitting alongside fellow local authors who are published across a variety of genres. I may also be sitting with fellow writers/publishers Sarah Glenn and Gwen Mayo because as the next note will state...

Any day/month now the third volume of the Strangely Funny anthology series will be published. Sarah and Gwen are the publishers and editors with Mystery & Horror LLC imprint, and they'll likely bring copies of this latest anthology to the authors' event, which we can sign as a group.

Update before the Update: Volume III of Strangely Funny is NOW AVAILABLE as a Kindle ebook! Look for my story "Minette Dances with the Golem of Albany" and enjoy! (Print version and EPUB version will be available soon)

I'm finishing up one story for submission to the Florida Writers Association annual anthology (I thought I had it but something needs tweaking...) and I'm thinking a previous writing mini-lesson story I did a few months back could qualify for this year's theme of "Hide and Seek" so I'll likely submit both to test my odds. ;)

Update: I need to revise the status of a previous publication. Stories For All Seasons is currently ON HOLD as the writing group I'm with is changing the format and marketing for the book.

I've changed the Writings Tab atop my banner now, go take a look and consider if you're interested in downloading any of the titles listed, please and thank you.

I am planning on getting a poster of the Body Armor Blues ebook created as a giveaway item for the Local Authors event to entice an audience...

New: Body Armor Blues

I have more details on my writing/librarianship blog, but I e-published again this past weekend!

Body Armor Blues

cover art by Istebrak

It's a superhero tale of honor, love, betrayal, cake, and the never-ending battle to get uniforms with zippers in appropriate locations! ...well, sorta...

Available via Amazon Kindle and Smashwords for EPUB (Barnes & Noble will market the Smashwords copy soon for Nook readers).

Shameless Self-Promotion: New Anthology Stories for All Seasons

Just cross-posting from my writing/librarianship blog:  my local writers' group Writers 4 All Seasons decided to work on a group project, getting our own anthology based on a specific theme published.

Stories for All Seasons is themed around seasons, and story order placed by chronological order.  As such my Christmas-timed story "Where the Snow Is Grey" is towards the end.

It's currently Kindle-only as an ebook (print is well, expensive to produce) but I will ask about EPUB format, hopefully we will have that format soon as well.

I'm feeling a bit buzzed, getting published again with a short in a nice anthology that I hope all 7 readers of this blog can enjoy... ;)  Makes me wanna finish those damn novels I keep blocking over /headdesk /mutter /grumble

Hope you're having a better weekend than the Republican Media Elites. ;)  And to the 3200-plus people who used my drinking game for last Thursday's debate, I hope your livers and hangovers forgive me.


Update 8/12/2015: it's selling rather well, I saw it ranked as high as #91st on the Amazon sales list for Short Stories.  By comparison, my individual stories like "Welcome to Christmas in Florida" is around 1,378th in the Short Reads > Teen & Young Adult, and Last of the Grapefruit Wars highest ranking is 37,949th in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors.

Personal Note: Getting My Writings Published

Just to note that a new anthology History and Mystery Oh My! is out on the market for ebooks.

Amazon has it listed for their Kindle.  Barnes and Noble has it for their Nook and anyone with an EPUB reader can get it via Smashwords.

My story "Dread Secret of the Battle of Los Angeles" is about the real-life event in 1942 when the West Coast was rattled by the post-Pearl Harbor fears of more Japanese attacks.  I make a few guesses, put in a few sarcastic remarks about Hollywood, and add a few references to Star Wars, Flash Gordon and the Rocketeer to boot.  Hope you like it!

Current Writing Status: Published Again, Yay

I've gotten another short story accepted and published by Mystery & Horror LLC, for their current anthology Mardi Gras Murder. Apropos as we're in the season for it.  The story title is "Why The Mask."  It's got Mardi Gras.  It's got murder.  I hope you enjoy reading it.

It's available right now via Amazon.com, and print copies are being shipped to the submitted authors as I type this.

As for my previous submission to M&H LLC, "I Must Be Your First" for Strangely Funny, I've gotten some decent notices in the book reviews so far on Amazon and GoodReads.  I hope "Why The Mask" gets an equally receptive response.

Now... to get this damnable first novel finished!  Arrrrgh...

P.S. Anyone going to MegaCon this March?

Slightly Off-Topic: Getting Published in Anthology

Just wanted to note that within the last 48 hours, the editors of the Strangely Funny humor-horror anthology got their publication up on the ebook markets for Amazon.com and Smashwords!

And just to explain why I'm so keen about this getting out there on the market... they accepted and published my story submission "I Must Be Your First."

(insert Snoopy dance here)

I've been mentioning it a lot on my writing/librarian blog but I'm not sure if the traffic I get here crosses over to there... so... CROSS-POSTING!

Also, YES!

It feels great to have a story published by someone other than yourself.  :sheepish grin:

Side Note: Making an eBook

I bit the bullet a week ago and ordered the POD service XLibris to make my short story collection Last of the Grapefruit Wars available in eBook format.

There's a few eBook devices out there - Kindle, Sony eReader, Nook - and the publisher has already converted it in Kindle and Sony format (not sure what format Nook uses).

I'm not sure how soon Grapefruit Wars will be available on the market in ebook format and I'm checking every day when it will, but for those of you with an eBook reader... BUY MY BOOK!  BUY IT!  I NEED THE STAT COUNT!  FIVE THOUSAND BUYERS AND I GET A NEW TOASTER OR A BOOK DEAL OR SOMETHING!  Ahem...

Sorry.  Being unemployed and desperate for ANYTHING in terms of income kinda does push the Panic Mode button for me.  I'd be a little more proactive with advertising and all, but with the POD (Print On Demand) system you have to pay for your advertising, and I just don't have the budget for that.  I barely had enough to justify the cost of ebook conversion... but I figure as electronic publishing becomes the norm this is a good investment for now.

Oh, and one more thing.  BUY MY BOOK!  BUY IT!!!