Month: January 2012

I am very excited about the thought of releasing my book “Conduit” on Amazon in the very near future. Yes, a little nervous, OK a lot nervous, but still excited. I hope that people will enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. So with my energy high, I made the mistake of opening up my web browser and searching the internet for self publishing tips. Of course I was bombarded with different viewpoints from those expressing how wonderful self publishing is to those telling me only losers self publish. Of course on the one site explaining how I’m loser for self publishing my book, the thought ran by of posting a note explaining how some very famous authors started their career by self publishing but I forced myself to close the window and vent silently causing some indigestion.

Knowing self publishing my story was not going to be easy, I still made the decision to go for it. I had read some articles before making my decision, but not a lot. Just enough to get me knee deep in it. That’s the way I tend to do things. I dig myself a hole, seeing how far I can go and then, in between panting for breath, look up wondering how I’ll get out. I do end up finding a way out at some point, but I always find myself thinking that I should have listened to more advice. But where’s the fun in that?

At this point, I have my story ready to go. The cover is almost ready. I have a website with a blog, a facebook page, and even a google page (which I haven’t had any time to add anything to). In between thinking about how to manage all of these things, I’m thinking about how much more I can spread myself out. After all, who doesn’t want to hear from me? I need to get to everyone! Next up, Twitter so I can tweat like I’ve never tweated before! Watch out Twitter! Oh, I can’t forget I’ll need an Amazon page too.

So here I am, sitting in that hole I dug, taking a breath for a moment, my trusty shovel propped up next to me while I sit and stare up a the clouds above.

I understand now why so many people have tried the self publishing venture and gave up at some point along the way, running back to trying to get a publisher to notice their work – all to finally give up on their dream completely. The fact is though, even if an author finds a publisher to publish their work, this day in age an author cannot afford to skimp out on social applications, or at least new authors can’t. There is still a lot of work an author needs to do even when working with a publisher. Many publishers scour the internet to research authors submitting work, to make sure they have a web presence. My argument to those who shun self published authors is this: Neither route, self publishing or traditional publishing is a walk in the park. Publishing traditionally means that the author may get some boost in marketing power, but self publishing means most profit goes to the author.

There. I’ve proved to myself I’m on the right track. Maybe if I keep digging, I’ll find my way out?

With eBooks gaining popularity, there appears to be a trend of shorter style books called novellas entering the market. So what is causing this?

I attribute the change to several factors that I list below:

1)Cost
Without the overhead of printing books, there is much less cost involved in having a story available for sale. In addition, more and more authors are finding that more money can be made by posting the story themselves without the lengthy process of going through a publisher. Where an author would expect most of the income to go to all parties involved in getting the story published, he or she has the opportunity to post the story on their own, thus realizing a higher royalty. Because of this, an author has more flexibility in the cost of their story. With many people posting their own books for free or as low as .99 cents, authors are forced to sell their eBooks at lower prices. When books with 30,000 words (approximately 100 pages) are selling for the same price as full novels of 80,000 words or more, why wouldn’t an author move to writing novellas?

2)Lifestyle
I attribute much of the success of the eReaders to the accessibility of new books and other writing. In addition, life has become so much faster paced, many people do not have the time to visit a bookstore and browse for a new book to read. People have become so accustomed to having what they need available to them at the moment they want it, the idea of having to drive to a store to buy a book is almost archaic. With an eReader, a book can be purchased and downloaded in a matter of seconds. This new breed of reader is more apt to buy a smaller book to enjoy in a sitting or two instead of having to expend more time and energy on a larger and more complex story. The average worker today is stressed with a poor economy, work that demands most of their energy, and hardships at home. The idea of a large novel that requires a lot of thought isn’t as appealing as it used to be whereas an enjoyable story that has a world where the reader can slip off to, away from the stresses of their world, is what they are craving.

3)Speed
Readers are not the only ones that benefit from the rise of the novella. Authors who embrace the movement will find that their novels can be split into multiple stories allowing for their work to be produced more quickly and as a result, income can be generated at a quicker pace then had the author wrote a full novel.

I’m sure there are those out there that are against the novella format. It certainly has its pros and cons. I choose to look at it more optimistically. I know my blog is a new blog and I’m sure I won’t get many responses yet, but I’d love to hear some different views on this. So what do you think? Is the novella good for the writing industry or is it bad? Are we going to see more of them or less?

I first started my story “Conduit” with the idea that I wanted to create a new kind of alien invasion story. One, not about green people invading earth or ripping from the chests of helpless victims, but one more about how everyday people would cope with an apocalyptic event involving beings from another world.

With that approach I began thinking about what characters I would want to include. I had an overall base of what personalities would be in the story and even the beginning and the end of my book. I toyed with my idea for some time and went through periods of shelving it to revisiting it later followed by shelving it again. There was a piece missing to it all. How do the aliens invade?

Sure, I could use the standard militaristic invasion, but that whole scenario doesn’t fit with me. My reasoning is this: if aliens are smart enough to have discovered a way of space travel, I would expect that they would have figured out a way to conquer us through other methods then through weaponry. Why not instead use us? Why not find a way to tap into our minds and control us. Discover a way for each of us to pass the alteration ourselves, much like the flu. No warfare would be needed and the world is theirs for the taking.

Stuck on that idea, I shelved my idea once more. I liked it, but I didn’t know how to implement it. That was until I remembered an article I had read some time ago. It was scary to me when I read it:

Zombie Ants (National Geographic)

And that’s when it all came together.

Yesterday, I found this article as well:

Zombie Bees (USA Today).

I find that to be creepy stuff and the creepiest thing of all, it is real. Now what if this could be made in a way to affect humans? Yikes!