outside the lines » Web/Tech

The creepy season

TJPontz — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:26:12 +0000

This blog is something I started as a place to talk about fiction writing. The problem today is that I’ve been doing far more nonfiction writing, which is kind of a new genre for me. So to get everybody caught up on what I’ve been doing, I’m going to bridge that chasm in my brain here and leave a breadcrumb for folks to follow.

First off, I did a modernized version of the Jefferson Bible. It’s a pretty modestly sized little book, so why not? Derivative works don’t usually get updated as often as scripture, and I thought that it would be pretty interesting to see how well it works in today’s English. You can read more about that project at http://jeffbible21.com. It dovetails nicely with my loves of history and language, and many years pondering theology.

The other project I have just completed is the Haunted Homeowner’s Survival Guide. There is a ton of misinformation out there, and ‘reality’ TV shows of folks chasing spooks doesn’t help the situation. I’m condensing the web site content into a downloadable PDF just to help people out. There will be a version on Smashwords for other eBook readers, and I will ask a modest price for the download to help cover the costs of my domain setup. There will be a coupon program too, so no fears there.

I think my favorite part of the web site (http://hauntedhomeowners.com)is when I short circuit a lot of the preconceived notions about paranormal events by letting you think about something parallel but completely different.

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a minute.

Suppose I say that I have an invisible unicorn in my closet. I want you to find him and get rid of him for me, okay? He throws clothes off the hangars and into piles in the corner. He turns the lights on and off, and I hear his hooves on the floor sometimes.

How do you catch a unicorn? I’m glad you asked, because there are two basic schools of unicorn catching.

1) Believe there may be a unicorn. You give me the benefit of the doubt, and try to find the unicorn. Set up your cameras, thermal detectors, magic field finders, and hoof sensors. If you find any evidence that way, you’ll be inclined to believe you really did find a unicorn. That’s what you were looking for, isn’t it?

2) Believe there might not be any unicorn. Using this method you would investigate the hangars to make sure the clothes should have stayed on them. Is there anything in the closet that could have knocked the clothes off? Check the piles of clothes to see if it is just normally discarded laundry (ew!) or if it has anything else going on. Does the light switch have a second circuit, a faulty switch or a loose lightbulb? Check out the floor carefully for construction faults, noises caused by seasonal expansion and contraction from heating systems or air conditioning. Lastly, you’d think about getting an evaluation of me at the hospital, because most sane people don’t believe they have unicorns in their closet.

In this case, if you use the term ‘unicorn’ with me, it is an agreement that something odd is going on, even if there is no invisible beast in there with a horn growing out of its forehead.

With either method you may find a simply unexplainable phenomena. Or you may decide it was all just my cat.

What is a ghost? Many people would commonly answer that it is the remaining spiritual energy of a human who is no longer alive. What is a demon? Many people would commonly answer that it is an energy force or a spiritual entity of a being who is not human, probably with hostile (or at best not friendly) intentions.

Great! But what does that mean in measurable, scientific terms? How can anybody know for certain the difference between a ghost and a demon? What kind of spiritual energy is this, exactly? Does it have a voltage? How many milliwatts does it take to create an apparition or a moving shadow? Energy fields are measurable, so this should be a piece of cake, right?

So if you happen to find a piece of ectoplasm, please save it for me. I want to see if I can charge my cell phone with it…. I’ve decided that creativity can be used in nonfiction writing. Maybe that is a lesson appropriate for this page after all.

Lessons learned

TJPontz — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:09:53 +0000

I've finally put the text editing of the eBook to rest, and the final first edition will be hitting the interwebs shortly, followed by the audio book as quickly as I can turn it around. I still chuckle at myself because I thought this would be a fairly quick and painless audiobook to make, just as soon as… well I was wrong, mkay?

I've learned that there are many unexpected differences among the three branches of 'book' publishing methods.

eBooks: If you're going for formats other than PDF, stick with all text all the time.

* The more simple and streamlined text you can manage, the better the result will be.

* Stick with one font that is completely universal, and don't get fancy.

* Anything like a picture or photo book won't work in several eBook reader formats. Stick with text or PDF versions.

* Do your homework! I've blogged here previously about the many differences in eBook vendors and distribution methods. Find the one that is completely right for you, not the first one that looks like it might fit.

audiobooks: There is nothing standardized. Some audio books have everything edited into one huge MP3 file that is therefore hard to navigate and requires bookmarks (or not, if you're using eztolistento.com). Other publishers have everything discreetly in separate chapter files, but with the same nauseating introduction material, copyright notices, and whatever legal disclaimers all munged together on EVERY freaking chapter. This is what happens when you're doing marketing with lawyers.

There are some well intentioned audiobooks out there that use music and sound effects, but if the music doesn't match the story (fusion jazz in a medieval setting) and the sound effects are canned, you've lost me as a listener. I'd rather have just a well trained reader telling me the story without the distracting theatrics, thanks. This is why I think indie audiobook narrators can potentially do just as well as the major houses.

The problems for freelance audiobook narrators are:

* Finding content to read that isn't already covered by twelve audiobooks. That's why I'm going for the older public domain materials.

* It's difficult to monetize audiobooks when there are many outlets giving them away, even though done by inexperienced or volunteer audiobook readers. It is always hard to compete with "free".

* I'm still exploring the idea of podcasting, so I can't comment on it just yet.

Paper publishing: This seems to be a dying breed, but I'm not expecting books to go away any time soon, and I would be sad if they did. This is the world of hidden legalities and piled-on fees. Free publishing may not be worth the price, and the package you need to buy to get stuff done may be cheaper elsewhere.

Something as innocent as an ISBN number can skew how you can handle your own work, or move it to another publisher. This is why I am insisting on my own ISBN number. If a publisher gives you a free ISBN number, you are NOT the publisher, and you are tied to that publisher and distribution system (perhaps exclusively) unless you do a major revision and take your marbles to play elsewhere.

The bright spots:

Smashwords.com. Those guys are trying very hard, and their automated system is trying to make the best document conversions possible from your source document into many online formats. Thanks to Mark and Bill! It's a unique solution that would cost a fortune to be done by hand by some other trained professional.

@TheCreativePenn. If you are getting started (or are established) as a writer, author, publisher, or just a fan of books you need her tweets on Twitter. She must have an army of elves (or maybe it's gnomes, I don't know) helping her find the links she forwards. Every one is a gem, and they just.keep.coming! Plus she podcasts and does very informative interviews. I think she may have secretly cloned herself.

One last word – don't hold your breath for the Google eBook format. Move forward and establish yourself now, if that's what you're doing. There is a healthy dose of concern about what Google's eBook project is going to mean to the rest of the publishing world. I'm not concerned at all. For any gloom and doom scenario, there will be an equal and opposite opportunity for more eBooks. Things are changing quickly (eBook sales are up over 200% May 08 to May 09), so just stay alert and stay informed!

Wrestling with eBook formats

TJPontz — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:42:16 +0000

Last week, I knew I would need to find more outlets for my eBook. I knew this would mean reformatting to meet the various requirements of the proprietary eBook vendors (Kindle, Sony, PDF, and etc.).

When I found Smashwords it seemed like a quick fix for all of that. I've hit some snags, but they are not the fault of Smashwords. In fact, I'm working with the CEO and CTO, who have been more than willing to help me figure out my technical issues, and I give them big kudos for that!

For one thing, my eBook (The Jefferson Bible for the 21st Century) has the unfortunate dilemma of smaller, superscripted numbers every few words to show verses (to stay in keeping with Jefferson's original verse numbering system). This is something that does not translate well in eBook formats.

Part of this is also due to my choice of software tools. I did the original source document in Mac's iWork Pages, which does not offer an HTML output. Thanks for nothing, Apple. I'm really shocked that Apple didn't consider this, and I was sure it would be an option when I purchased the software.

So I exported as a .doc, and opened it in OpenOffice, which displays differently. Even if I fix the display in OpenOffice, it does not export correctly. Thanks for trying, OpenOffice folks, but I really need it to work better.

So very reluctantly I've returned to Microsoft Windows so that I can open my document from Office, and export the HTML, and then proceed to tweak that result to taste. I would almost rather gnaw off my leg to get out of this trap, but that's not an option. The Microsoft Office spam that goes into an HTML export is mind numbing. I have seen files where more than half the file size is unnecessary code. So today I'm straightening this stuff out. I have a tool for the Mac side of the house that should help – PageSpinner.

I'm really surprised that Apple does not offer an inexpensive HTML editor to compete with Adobe on some level. It does not help that their built-in text/edit application defaults to RTF. Ya, really. But this is the first hiccup I've found with Apple, and while significant it isn't a show stopper.

So I'm blogging. It's a form of procrastination. I really dislike heavy reformatting, but here I go. With a little luck I'll be back into the audio book side of the project soon, and the Jefferson Bible for the 21st Century will be available on Smashwords for all your eBook formats. (It is available on Scribd for the low download price of $1.00 – or you can read it online for free). The paper version is coming soon to Lulu.com, as soon as I finish proofing the first copy, which should arrive one day very soon.

Publishing Comparisons (POD vs POD)

TJPontz — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:03:05 +0000

(Updated because I can’t believe I didn’t include Scribd!)

(Updated again for some interesting International info for non-US folks trying to publish on Amazon!)

I had my mouse cursor hovering over the Upload button at lulu.com, but I am truly thankful that I took more time to research the POD / self publishing / vanity publishing horizon before I settled on a publisher for my current project. No, I’ve not settled on that publisher(s) yet. Thanks for asking. I was originally leaning toward lulu.com, but all bets are off at the moment.

There may be several dozen ways to organize this data, so I didn’t. This is a semi-random info dump of what I’ve found so far. Some entries are lump-able into categories, and others just kind of stand on their own.

Since I don’t have a legal department, I’ll issue a disclaimer anyway. This information is all gathered recently across many web sites. For all I know it is already outdated somewhere. This information is for rough comparisons only. Your mileage will vary.

Most of these publishers are a mix of paper/digital, so I did not differentiate unless there is something unique in their approach.

NOTE -> All places where I report the cost of a copy of a single book for an author, it is either a 5.5″ x 8.5″ or 6″ x 9″ paperback trade book – color cover and black text on white paper @250 pages (or similar as described on their page). I’ve tried to give similar data where it is available, in a similar pattern in the text. It is extremely difficult to match apples and apples across these many web pages.

The other cost I list is the minimum cost for your first hundred books, which is the minimum setup fees and book costs with NO additional services selected. Also no discounts are accounted for, and my math may be fuzzy, but I tried to be consistent.

Mind your security while you browse these sites. Some of these pages are truly horrific throwbacks to not only Web 1.0, but Windows 98 or something. They tease with a little information and require you to register so they can send you more data. I did not bother registering with these sites, assuming they either didn’t know how to spell “Internet”, or they were up to something else evil. Really folks, this is the 21st century. Put your data out where we can find it, or some of us are just not going to play that game and you’re losing authors. Allrighty then?

I may also have missed some significant publishing vendors. Let me know and I’ll include them as an update. So here we go.

POD and Self Pub (paper/digital) Publishers (in no particular order)

Most of these entries have editorial, layout, book design and marketing packages that can be purchased. Sometimes the packages are bundled.

iUniverse [http://www.iuniverse.com/] has a separate service for everything. If you’re the author who needs a lot of services, the kind of traveler who demands room service and excellent concierge service, this is perhaps your publisher. I would not be surprised if they have services for their services. Setup fees range $599 – $2099. Author cost per book (for our example size as stated above) is $11.19. The minimum cost per the first hundred copies (your promotional stash) is $1718. Layout, design and editorial services are abundant. They don’t seem to have much of an author community, but they do have author podcasts going. They also offer hosted web sites to market your book. Only books, no other media.

Lulu [http://www.lulu.com/] also offers a suite of services for editing, layout, cover design, and etc. There are no setup fees, but the services can rack up the cost quickly. The author cost for one book is $8.53. The cost per the first 100 is $853. Lulu also handles CDs, DVDs, audio books, PDF downloads, and some other media as well. There is an authors forum area, and they brag about their technical support. For a confident author with an editor friend and a graphics friend, Lulu can be a low cost entry point effectively. Lulu has storefront pages for your book collection that is a fairly staid template with your customized background image.

Authorhouse
[http://www.authorhouse.com/] opens their setup fees from $598 to $1298. The author cost for a book is $9.83. The minimum cost for the first hundred books seems to be $1581. Authorhouse will grant a free ISBN number, but they didn’t say anything about US Copyright registration. They also brag on their technical support.

Scribd
[http://www.scribd.com/] Scribd is the single eBook-only venture I came across (but that is not what I was looking for so that’s appropriate). You may upload any document to Scribd, and readers can read a sample online for free. If they purchase that book, they may read it all online, or download and therefore print it. The author may set any price, and keeps 80% of the revenue. This is seemingly a streamlined system (I’ve not tried it yet) and the home page is already throwing books at the viewer’s browser, which I like as a marketing approach. The downside is that the browser must load the iPaper application, which streams the document to the browser, and therefore takes a bit of time to load. This feature has taken some heat in some forums I was reading through. Scribd has a fairly complete FAQ area to welcome new authors, so that’s a plus.

Selfpublishing.com [http://www.selfpublishing.com/] This is one of the sites that requires registration, so I didn’t investigate it very thoroughly. One odd thing is that a hosted ISBN is $99, and an indie ISBN is $125 and the barcode is another $25. You can buy 10 bar codes in a block from the source on the Internet, plus bar codes, for that amount. If you have nine more books in you, I’d venture elsewhere.

CreateSpace [http://www.createspace.com/] This one also requires registration a little sooner than I would have preferred. The author cost for a book is $3.66 (or less if you upgrade your package). They offer a free hosted ISBN, and an indie ISBN for $35. They pay royalties as follows: Retail is list price -20%, and Amazon is list price -40%. They offer hosted web sites for your book. One big plus is that they handle multiple media formats (including the only video service I found so far). CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, so if you publish here the next step for marketing should be a breeze!

Xlibris [http://www.xlibris.com/] Packages run from $299 to $12999 (whew!) and the author cost for one book is $13.19 (whew!). Royalties paid are 25% on retail sales, and 10% of Amazon sales. The minimum cost for 100 books therefore is about $1618.

Mill City Press [http://www.millcitypress.net/] This group has a different approach. They claim to only charge the wholesale printing cost to the author without a markup (which is only $3.90 for our sample size), and the author keeps 100% of the royalties. They also claim to not use book cover templates. Packages are either $1497 or $3798. The cost per the first hundred books is $1887. The less expensive package does not cover things like web site fulfillment and ebook creation, which cost extra.

Wordclay [http://www.wordclay.com/] charges an initial setup fee of $245. A single book costs the author $9.41. The first hundred book cost is $1186. Layout help is bundled with the Premier package at $999. Hosted ISBN is $99, indie ISBN is $135. The scrolling box at the bottom of the sites page says smashwords and ebook formatting is available as of May, but I didn’t see any further info about that.

Dog Ear Publishing [http://www.dogearpublishing.net] gets extra points because I love their name. They also have gone out of their way to compare themselves to other POD vendors, though some of the data is dated. Tsk. Packages are $1099 or $3499. Author cost for a book is $4.28. Cost per first hundred is $1527. Hosted web sites are available, and they will handle US Copyright registration – but they say nothing about ISBN availability (or I missed it).

Smashwords [http://www.smashwords.com/] Multiple ebook formats without DRM. No costs up front to set up your ebook. Royalties are 85% of retail sales. The books are available online for free, in a somewhat controlled window that takes awhile to load (because it has to read in a book’s worth of data or some such). This is awkward for some internet readers. But hey, they know Kindle from iPod, so there may be hope.

Green alternatives?

Book Printing Revolution [http://bookprintingrevolution.com/] Do you insist that your publisher be as green as possible? There is only one publisher that I found to be bragging on their environmental credentials. BPR (that’s my shortcut, not theirs) is an offset press / digital combination. The author retains rights. Minimum print run is 100 copies. Your book may hit the press in 10 – 20 days. They offer editorial, layout, cover design, and distribution help. I found no information abou
t hosted ISBNs, indie ISBNs, or US Copyright registration.

How about secure (view online-only) PDF, or print as a book options?

Feeling paranoid about illegitimate downloads of your book? You might want to think about Completely Novel[http://www.completelynovel.com/]. This is a UK-based publisher. There are no setup or packaging fees. The author cost of one copy is £3.29 (GBP). Cover design help is available via a free widget of which they seem to be proud. Books are all available on paper or online in a variety of formats. They claim the books online are not printable or downloadable, and can be read by anybody as a teaser for the paper edition. Another angle is that you can publish your document and embed it in your blog, which I thought was a unique approach.

Vanity Publishers (sorta)

Outskirts Press [http://www.outskirtspress.com/] A quirky web site that will not cough up much real information without registering (therefore I did not comply). Setup packages range from $199 to $1099. Publishing commences up to 90 days after contract. They claim to pay royalties by check (awesome! ??) have templates for book covers (yawn), and only include an ISBN at the $699 level package (not defined as to hosted or indie). Make no mistake – this is your grandfather’s web site!

Raider International Publishing [http://www.raiderpublishing.com/] wasted my time with a flash intro that did absolutely nothing to explain themselves. It’s a pet peeve of mine. Then when I entered the main site the color, fonts, and display contrasted very sharply. So I’m lead to believe that they are still experimenting with this intarweb thingy… Raider wants you to submit your manuscript for consideration. How nice of them! Listen, are you going to trust a place named “Raider” to submit your manuscript to? I’m just sayin’. Setup and publishing packages range from $699 to $2499. Think about it – you have to submit your manuscript and then you also have to pay the setup costs. I really have no idea what they think they’re doing.

Books go to press up to 6 months after the contract is a ‘go’. Six months? Geez, I could go faster on Gutenberg’s original movable type press, in German, translating from Latin. I don’t know either of those languages. They offer layout help and talk about international printing options, but I didn’t pursue those avenues fully.

No, I’m not a comedian, nor am I a professional critic of web pages. But as a consumer, I have my preferences, right?

NOTE: International Authors! Trying to distribute via Amazon? You have two options, either lulu.com or CreateSpace. I’m not entirely sure of the connections you might need for lulu.com. I found out that CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, and they require either a bank account in a bank that has a branch in the US, or an address to send the check to before you proof your first copy. Contact the tech support department of either publisher for more info.

Lessons Learned?

* Do your own homework. Some of these prices are easily out of date. Some of these policies may not be in effect by the time you read this blog entry. Also, if you Google around, some of these outfits have been accused of being scams. Is it worth your while to pay $499 for a marketing package that is only going to write a blurb to paste into a news release? Keep in mind it is entirely possible to pay thousands of dollars, and sell only a dozen books. There are no guarantees. Read the fine print!

* Find your comfort zone. Many of the base packages are fairly hefty in cost, yet they contain elements that I can certainly do myself. I’m somewhat handy with graphics programs, I can handle marketing blurbs, and I have at least a fuzzy idea about how to get visibility for my work. Your mileage may vary. If you need these services, go with the package you need for the price you’re willing to pay.

* Strike your balance. There is a huge difference between publishing cost, and the cost of printing the books themselves. If you publish a book for free but you have to spend a fortune for the books to send as promotional copies, you may not have done yourself any favors. If you pay for a marketing plan that boils down to sending out a newsletter to some dead-end outlets, and/or they send
you a stack of postcards and news release forms, did that really help you? What exactly did you pay for?

* Think it through to the end! Ask about return policies! Some booksellers in some markets might see as high as 70% return rates. This means there are books coming back that somebody is going to have to eat, right?

Last rant: I am absolutely amazed that only a couple of sites knew anything about smashwords or Kindle. Or DRM. I was hoping to be more informed about electronic and paper publishing convergence, but I’m a little disappointed in the exercise.

Now then, I’m off to find my ibuprofen because I’ve typed too much. Cheers!