Why I Unpublished my book, and What is Next

You know, I'm getting a bit sick of all the tra la la las. Things folk are saying, advice they are offering, and its the same shit all the time. Here's one I hear a lot.

if Stephen King wouldn't do it, I won't do it

Okay, in actual fact, I've never heard that, never with King's name anyway. But peeps keep floating in comments about how a trad pubbed midlist author doesn't do certain things. So Indies shouldn't, cause it makes us look professional (if'n we don't).

Personally, I call that a crock of shit.

Trad pubbed midlisters (TPMLs from here on) have rules to follow, like Never Piss off a Potential Customer, and so on. And if they did, they'd get their asses chewed by their agents and editors and everyone else. It's why so many TPML books are formulaic, and it's why so many readers love the originality and personality in indie novels.

Shouldn't we let some of that originality and individuality shine out of our asses, too? Sorry, I meant shine out of our blogs.

So what makes indie's look professional? Well, great books, great covers, great storylines, good editing. Those kind of things.

I'm not saying you should be like the monkey at the zoo and fling your shit at people, but I am saying with no one breathing down on indie's backs, its refreshing to be honest, and up front, and just be yourself.

I've noticed indies can be a bit "defensive" about certain things, like there are rules

• don't talk about money
• don't bad mouth other indies
• don't bad mouth the trad publishers
• act like you've got a big stick up your jacksie

Some of that's just pish. Here, look, I'll break some rules and the world won't end.

INVICTUS

I published Invictus on Smashwords on Sept 10th, 2010. I put it on Amazon a month later. It is now the 16th of February and I have to date sold (oh my God, don't reveal your sales figures)

50 copies

Yep, that's all.

40 on Amazon, 10 on Smashwords.

Amanda Hocking I aint, huh?

So, what went wrong? Well, it was actually quite a lot of things.

For one, the cover. I like the cover, but it is very plain, very bland. Invictus begins in medias res and never comes down. I want the cover to reflect something of the story, whether it be the airships or the demons, the revolvers or the clockwork robot assassins.

For two, the pacing. Invictus, as I just mentioned, is fast. Very fast. It races from attempted royal assassination to the sinking of the Titanic, setting fire to half of London and crashing an airship along the way. The pacing needs to be reconsidered, and one or two slower moments introduced.

For three, the editing. Which will be a post all on its own.

For four, the marketing. I released Invictus in October, separated from my wife in November, and am just returning to my book in February. All the marketing Invictus had was word of mouth, and that didn't happen much. Not surprising, with the points addressed above.

Guest Post - Editing - Vix Philips

Right. My name's Vix, and it's Friday down under, and lor' bless those wonderful things called timezones since this guest blog post is due today, UK time. Hello from the future. Anyway, I've been editing a book since July, so when my wonderful host asked me to do a spot over here I did a lot of hand-wringing and head-scratching as to what on earth I could possibly write about before the little lightbulb went on over my head--bing! there it is--oh yes. Editing.

So, editing. Editing, editing, editing, editing. I'm not going to talk about weaving the perfect plot, or description, or characters, or any of that stuff. This is all about what happens *after* you've sent your wee bairn AKA manuscript off to the wilds of beta readers, editors, or simply let your gut (or whatever part of you that hurts the most when it gets punched) make the thing as perfect, story-wise, as you can get it. This is about the part that comes between that and you formatting the thing to go off into the world, with the idea that if you follow at least some of these steps, the amount of expletives you'll need to utter when you see the thing in print/e-book form will be markedly reduced. A how-to guide for the reduction of those niggling little errors I've heard many authors complain about after the fact, in other words.

1. Find and replace.
Wonderful little function, this one. Comes in pretty much all word-processors, as you no doubt know by now. Not just good for changing Jims to Jills, or vice versa, but also for picking up nasty little formatting errors like double spaces after periods, no spaces at all after periods (or commas) and so on.

2. Wordle.net
Found at http://wordle.net/
Everyone has those words they overuse. This is where wordle comes in handy. You copy and paste your novel into the box, click submit, and back comes a lovely little tag-cloud type thing with the most commonly used words in a nice colourful font right in your face. It ignores the "invisible words" like 'the', 'and', 'then', etc. I do one pass for the entire book (to get a good overview), and one per chapter, in case I've unintentionally overused a more unusual word in a short span of pages. If you see words like "eyes" coming up in a giant font, it may mean you're relying too much on one form of conveying emotion. The main character(s)' names popping up may mean you've gone a bit "Heathcliff!" "Cathy!" in your interactions through dialogue. Other times there are the old bugbears like "just". In general, you can ignore the smaller words--just pay attention to the ones that really stand out as being potentially problematic.

3. Text-to-speech.
Built-in on the Mac platform (Edit menu/Speech/Start Speaking); not sure about Windows, though you can probably download about 20 programs for free that will do the same thing (only one of which is bound to attach a naked picture of Bill Gates every time you send an email to your mum.) And if you're running Linux, well, what do you care, you'll probably write your own program to do it. Anyhow, sit back, relax, and let the dulcet tones of Stephen Hawking read each of your chapters aloud while you follow along on the screen. What this is going to do is immediately pinpoint any words you've missed out that your brain automatically fills in no matter how many times you read the darn passage, and also remind you that you wanted to say, for example, "revise" rather than "revile" right there. It will also help pinpoint repetitive words/phrases.

4. Hunt the Cliché!
There are plenty of trite phrases in common usage. But what about the really clever ones you come up with all on your own, the ones your brain looks at and says, "That's bloody brilliant, that is; I'm gonna use that again." And so it does. On page 10, and page 55, and page 103, and page 229, and-- Anyway, you get the picture. This program runs on Windows, so I've not yet given it a whirl, but apparently it's just for such an occasion (and includes your garden variety clichés), and it's free to try out for up to 20 files. It's called Cliché Cleaner and you can find it at http://www.cliches.biz/clichecleaner/ccinfo.html


So, these are some of the best ways I've uncovered to get a cleaner-looking final product. I hope you guys find it useful!


Bio: Vixen Phillips is an Australian writer of dark, mythic, confessional, lyrical fiction, and runs her own indie publishing project Lost Violet Press. Her first full-length novel, Trapdoor, a dark homoerotic love story, is due to be republished before the year's end, and her steampunk series is due out next year. You can find more info about her books at http://lostviolet.com/, or stalk her on twitter: @lostvioletpress.

Lady Luck

Cut cut cut.

I'm editing now.

I really hate editing, but at the same time I feel this edit is perhaps the most important.  Others have constructed my story, got it to the point it had to be at.  This edit is different, it's all about voice and style, this is where I make my novel truly mine.

Except you have to imagine he's holding a flashdrive, not a ring.

I have done nearly 20% of my novel. I have finished almost every class at college (so more time to spend on the book) and I have started planning a prequel series.

I'm a lucky person. I take this "luck" to extremes. I'm almost t'av'averen (or however it is spelled, and kudos if you are geek enough to know what I mean). I am lucky enough often enough that I can come to rely on it.

People don't believe me when I say this, but it's true. Whenever I buy scratch cards I win (not big amounts, but the point is I never lose). I don't buy them often. I roll sixes on dice more than often than any other number. I went to a Fun Day today and (with my daughter, who shares my luck) won a litre bottle of vodka, a litre bottle of gin, two bottles of beer, three bottles of wine, a room spray, a bottle of water, and hair stuff. And I didn't realise until I got home that the woman gave me the wrong change. I went out with £20 and came home with £24.

Now my luck is starting to work its way through my writing. 

I have found a talented editor who will edit my novel for free.

I have found a talented artist who will do my cover art for barter (I'm helping her set up a web page and blog, she has -5 in tech savvy).

I have found a certain person with certain skills who will be able to help with certain long term plans that I'm not going to mention right now (as they are very long term; let's just say this, I'm very excited about this).

I will get my novel out this year.  For zero upfront costs.

It's exciting, and scary.  

I'm loving it.