The Importance of Honest Feedback

A couple weeks ago, I covered why indie authors needed editors. Not long after, I was invited to expand on the piece and have it posted on the IRC website. This got me thinking about what comes before that editing. Beta readers, feedback, revisions, and polishing—for most authors anyways. I’m huge on beta readers, I have several of them and I beta read for others. I hate giving negative feedback, but I always couple it with something positive. Recently, I had one where the plot was good, but the execution was poor. I told Mia several times, “This person is going to hate me after this.” Because when I spoke to the person, they’d told me they’d gotten nothing but positive, glowing, feedback.

Luckily, she didn’t hate me. She asked me questions about it and then set on to work to clean it up. Honest feedback is what authors need to thrive. We are never going to grow and learn if we don’t get it. When I get feedback from my betas, readers, or editors and it’s bad, overwhelming, whatever, I let myself mope around for five minutes. That’s it. No more, because I know these people aren’t out there to hurt me, they are there to help me. I wouldn’t be anywhere without them. I consider every suggestion, even if I don’t use them, because there’s a chance that it could help the story.

This doesn’t only go for writing, but your whole product, covers and everything. You may think that you have the best cover on the market, but others may not think so. Your family and your friends of course are going to say, “Yeah, it’s great!” Because they are afraid to hurt your feelings (or they don’t care that much…). Have a team of people that you trust to give you honest feedback and keep them close. If someone tells you simply ‘it’s good’ start asking questions, why do you think it’s good? What could I do to make it great? What didn’t you like? If they can’t answer it, or give you canned answers, take them off your list. If you give them a document to mark up and there’s barely anything and no notes to accompany it, take them off your list.

Now that being said, beta readers, readers, and editors: Do not be afraid of hurting our feelings. I’m not saying that you have to be harsh, but you don’t have to sugar coat things either. Don’t say: this is a pile of shit, tell the author specifically what you don’t like, follow up with some good things too. You need to be honest with us. We can take it! We learn with honest feedback, we won’t learn if all you do is stroke our egos. No one writes a perfect first draft, we don’t catch our own plot holes all the time, and we certainly don’t always see from the readers POV. Don’t be afraid to ask questions to get us thinking.

Quitter or Failure?

When does a writer become classified as a failure? Who makes that decision? Is there a secret number that if you don’t hit it you are forever ranked as a failure?

There seems to be this idea from non-writers that if the author they know hasn’t hit the New York Times Best Seller List then they’ve failed. I don’t agree, but there comes a time when you probably need to reevaluate what you are doing if you aren’t hitting the goals you set for yourself. (As long as they are realistic goals)

A couple of things happened this past week that have caused me a bit of self-doubt and admittedly some tears and made me wonder when someone becomes known as a failure. Is it after they try to do everything that everyone says works and steering clear of the things that supposedly don't work? Or is it just as simple as, they are a failure when they think they are one?

1) I see authors behaving badly on social media. Responding to bad reviews, calling out their friends for not buying their books, bad mouthing other authors, and throwing themselves pity parties all because they’ve been doing this for so long and have nothing to show for it.

They do the one thing that every single Marketing book says not to do and yet they are top-selling in their genre. Although if you listen to them they are barely selling, but look at their numbers and they are tops in their genre.

This leads me to believe that maybe people really do inherently flock to drama. Maybe these authors aren’t so much “behaving badly” as they are marketing geniuses!

That’s crazy, you say? Really? On any given post on social media by an author bashing a bad review, talking about giving up because sales are low, or threatening to cull their friends lists to get rid of “haters” you will find – I shit you not- between 25-100+ comments on those threads. Either backing up the authors claims that the bad review is bullying, ego stroking them to tell them not to quit and recommending friends to buy the authors books, or begging to stay in that author’s “Inner Circle” because they are such loyal fans.

It’s a marketing win! Hello! These people are getting fresh exposure whenever they do these posts. It’s genius.

I still won’t go that route… But hey, they found something that works, and even better not a lot people do it (since we all read the books that say it’s a no-no). They reap the benefits. Good on them, but it still leaves me feeling blah about my own marketing. And so, I need to reevaluate my plan. Their plan won’t work for me but my current plan isn’t working so well either.

2) The other issue comes from family. Extended family, but family none the less. I could probably just leave it at that, since Family, even distant family, always knows how to hurt you most. They know the weak spots in our armor.

An extended family member asked me how my “little writing thing” was going. When I said, “It’s going.” They asked how many books I’ve sold… I hate that question. It seems so inappropriate. I would never ask someone how much money was in their bank account or how much cash they have in their wallet, but for some reason being invasive is okay when the person is merely writing “little stories”.

Anyways, I told them my numbers and they gave me one of these --> O.O <-- looks and said, “Wow… That’s it? I think it’s safe to say it’s time to throw in the towel and call it a good try.”

I didn’t feel up to arguing after that ego punch so I simply nodded and walked away. When I got home I let it eat at me. In truth it is still eating at me. I started looking at all the things I am doing wrong…

I’m spending too much time with my family. I could be writing more if we didn’t go do things or if I sent my kids to tutoring instead of helping them with homework. I spend too much time with my animals. I could probably learn something like formatting if I didn’t give them so much of my attention… But honestly these are things that I will not give up.

So I started looking at the other wrongs I’ve committed: I don’t have a dedicated editor. I rely on beta readers and numerous rounds of edits. Sure I’ve had people (several different people) edit my books, but I have no one who I have their full attention because the people I work with also write for themselves and have work of their own to do. So I started scanning the internet trying to find someone affordable… Still waiting on that.

I don’t know how to format. I have to rely on others and hope that I am not imposing on their time to get my stuff formatted.

I don’t know HTML… That could be useful too.

As my extended family member reminded me the other day: Successful authors pay for editing, formatting, and web-based stuff… Hell they have assistants, street teams, agents, etc… And I am here trying to do it by myself with the help of friends and trying to offset favors with trades and in the end feeling like I am spread too thing and failing.

I told my husband the other night “I’d rather quit than be a failure.” He said, “You’re only a failure if you quit.” (Which is what Alex said to me too.)

Would I really quit? No, not really. I just needed to say it out loud for a moment and embrace my own private pity party. I’ve been writing and telling stories long before anyone cared to read them. So no I am not quitting.

I don’t have huge sales, I’m not selling 50 books a month. I don’t have 100+ comments on my posts, but in the end what I do have is a handful of real friends who read what I write and tell me they love it. I have some solid reviews, even if they don’t number in the thousands. And lastly, I have my kids and ironically an estranged husband who are proud of me for doing what I am doing and for not giving up and who will always indulge me when I need to cry, or vent, or have myself a pity party.

That’s really all I need. I’m not here with delusions of making it big, hitting #1 spots on lists, or to have 5000 friends. I’m here for me, my stories, and for my friends and family who support me in this adventure.

Am I still feeling blah? Sure, but later today I’ll fire up Scrivener and write some more, because I can’t – not write – it’s in my blood and if I stopped I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

P.S. After writing this all up I received an email about my Ellora’s Cave book, I got my first blog review for Twisted Revenge and it was a 4.5 star review. That helped make this day less gloomy. So while that has nothing to do with the self-publishing aspect it serves as a reminder: There’s always a silver lining.

Why indie authors need an editor

As indie authors, we have a few disadvantages one of them being editors. We have to find, hirer, and pay our own editors. Some of us get lucky and have connections others not so much. Some may be able to get by with an extra pair of eyes (or five...) however, some authors think that they don't need editors. At all. I attended an editor's group for a year and it was a joke. Everyone would set deadlines to have projects finished by and no one would stick to them. I started to feel like an over achiever and then I brought my editor with me to check out the group and hopefully show them why it was important to have an editor. These are the two responses that stuck with me. RM: I do all my own editing so I don't need an editor. I don't want anyone messing with my style. T: There isn't an editor who understands my work, so I don't give it to one.

Now...there are very few authors who can self edit to the point of not needing, at the very least, extra eyes. My editor almost passed out, she was so shocked at the response. So, why do we need editors and/or extra eyes? Take a look:

See all that purple, that's grammar and typos that my editor found in a work (under my other personality.) That's after I read through it for the ARCs. Now, I will admit that grammar is not my strong point, but there were a lot of typos that I missed. (Some very obvious ones, sweatpants pants, the his townhome, yeah....) My eyes scanned right over them because I knew what it was supposed to say. So my advice to you, get an editor, get an extra pair of eyes at the very least. I know that just starting authors can't always afford an editor, but use your resources. My editor is a college student in school for editing, she just finished an advanced grammar class (only person I know who says it's fun to diagram books. Seriously...) we exchange coffee for edits and so she can use my books on her resume when she needs to.

Mia used a combination of people to polish up WUIB. It can be done, but when you can, spend the money on a good editor. Look for their credentials, ask them to edit a section for you so you can get the feel on if they are a good match. Put some effort into it people, because nothing is worse than a bunch of bad reviews do to an unprofessional book. Also...pass it through some beta readers first. Your editor shouldn't deal with a first draft...that's just mean.

The Perceived Image of an Indie Author

Ah, the wonderful world of the internet. It's great for networking, wonderful to keep in touch with families, and it breeds drama, but it can also be a great place for open discussion. I tend to lean more towards conversations with indie authors, but occasionally I cross over and talk to traditionally published ones too when it comes to talking shop. My favorite is to talk to other hybrid authors, which Mia are now considered hybrid authors. That's important, because I'm getting ready to break down somethings that I found and or experiences on the internet this last week. I often like to pretend that there is no more perceived image of an indie author, that we can walk amongst traditionally authors with our heads held high, and no one will pick on us. Yeah, right. (Though to be fair, we pick on traditionally published authors.)

So let's quickly define indie authors, traditionally published, and hybrids.

Indie authors: Normally this refers to authors who have no affiliation with a true publisher. There are authors who are considered indie who have combined to make their own press, or even just one author who made their own press so there was a publisher name, but it's not a publisher that caters to other authors.

Traditionally published authors: Authors who has a publisher, regardless of it's a big five publisher or not.

Hybrid authors: Authors who are published both ways.

So now to the fun stuff, now that we're all caught up. On a Facebook post a traditionally published author poised a question in regards to the possibility to produce a large amount of writing as an indie author and it being quality writing.

When I was an aspiring author, I was completely against self-publishing, and this was one of the reasons why. I saw a particular author releasing something almost every month and I thought, there is just no way that it's polished enough. My Hubby tried to play devil's advocate and questioned me as to why it wasn't possible. In the end I shrugged my shoulders and thought, 'we'll see.' Now that I'm an author, under two different names, one which is indie and one which is hybrid, I know it is possible. Everything I'm writing, with the exception of A Demon's Heart, are things that will be published next year. Everything I'm planning on releasing this year is written and either just waiting on covers or is currently being edited. Under one name, I'll be releasing six titles, three that are novels, and three that are short stories. Under Alexandra, I'll (hopefully) be seeing the release of two books with Ellora's cave and two indie releases. At a convention, I met several authors that work this way and now that I know how it works, I know it's possible.

So naturally...I jumped in wanting offer the perspective of a indie author. I wrote a well though out response that invited conversation, did not bash traditionally published, and was hoping for a well thought out response. What I got instead was a simple thanks for responding. Hm. So I continued to follow the conversation, one person pointed out that I had valid points, and we continued to discuss, but the conversation ended basically with this: Traditional is better because edits take time and the publisher is the best at that.

That is an age old argument. Indie books are not edited. That is not true. Granted, there is stuff out there that is not edited, but that is not the whole lot. Just like people tend to think: Traditionally published have better story lines and knows what sells. No. I've read some awful Traditionally published books and though they follow trends, they can't switch as easily. (I'm not saying write towards the trends people, just pointing things out.)

Now as for the editing. Worried about downloading an indie book and having it been unedited? Check out the sample first, that's a glorious feature right there. It saved me $10 on an indie e-book the other week. On a book that helps give indie authors a bad name. But back to the point, traditional authors still hold that idea that they are better because they are with a publisher, that their editors know more than editors we can hire or our betas, who are normally made up of our target audience. Am I saying that indie authors are better? No, what I'm saying is that we are all authors, and yes there is good and bad writing out there and good and bad stories out there, but they aren't exclusively indie. There are those indie authors who think that they are better, though and that is the wrong attitude to have. We can all learn from each other here people, so knock it off!

That brings me to my next point. There was an article going around social media that had mentioned how different hybrid authors are. It talked about how we aren't indies, which is partially true, and we aren't really traditional, which well, is kind of true as well. We have a foot in each world, but here's the thing. We are still indie, we still know and do all the work for some of our projects. In the article it talked about how the only way a hybrid author could survive in this world is if they were a New York best seller before they 'turned indie' like we're vampires or something. Turned. According to the author of the article, if the author was not a NY best seller, than they were no better than the indie authors.

Hold up. That gives hybrids  a negative image too. Again, can't we all be just authors? Can't we all get along? Probably not, because this is how life goes, it's a uphill battle for us all, yes even traditionally published authors. The perceived image of an indie author is still a negative one in some people's eyes. What we need to do is find a way to change this, regardless of the category that we fall in.

Indie Romance Convention

Post written as A.L. Kessler

So there comes a time when my head becomes so full of information that it's going to burst. The pounding headache behind my eyes hasn't seemed to dull, but of course that could be from switching altitudes.... This past weekend I was an attending author at the first ever Indie Romance Convention (IRC) and it was amazing. I gained so much information and met so many fantastic people. I plan on making a return appearance next year.

So where do I start? What information do I pass on, what tiny little gems of wisdom do I have for everyone reading this blog? My first one is, if you get a chance to go to this convention next year, do it. DO IT. I know it can be expensive, but the information and the networking makes it worth every penny.  I'm going to break down some of the things I picked up while I was out there. I'm hoping this isn't a ramble post and I also know I'm not going to be able to post everything, but I want to hit some of the highlights that'll make you think.

Let's start with marketing...I won't reveal how much some of these authors make a month, but let me put it this way...I could pay off some things and live off my writing. How did they get there? They market and well. (We're skipping past the first rule of writing a good book). Most of them have spent money on marketing, a tool that came up several times was Book Bub, which I have checked out and it looks like a pretty cool deal. You discount your book through them, they send a newsletter to subscribers containing your book on a list, and it boosts your downloads. It can be pricy depending on which news letter you need to get on, plus you have to be approved for this service. They stressed social networking a lot, be it Twitter, Facebook, or Goodreads. It's all about personal interaction with readers or potential readers, don't constantly try to sell yourself, but let them get to know you.

They talked about branding and eventually getting to the point where you can sell on your name alone, but not many of us are there yet. Branding and image are two very important things, what are people going to remember you for at conventions? Let me give you an example: Red Phenix, a BDSM author, is never seen without her mask, and normally in a corset. It fits her genre and people remember her for it. I'm not saying you have to have something that elaborate, but it works. Leigh Savage dresses in a more goth style to fit her vampire writing. This is something I need to work on, because many times through the weekend someone told me I looked so young that they didn't believe I was an author, or they thought I was a teenage. (For the record, I'm 26 and I'm 5'2".....) That's not really what I want to be remembered for, despite the fact that in ten years I'm going to be thankful for that.

Street teams: Oh man did these ladies talk about street teams highly! If you don't know what a street team is, it's a team of people (go figure...) that help you out with spreading the word about new releases, doing reviews, liking reviews, and a boat load of other things.

Best tip: Rule of thumb, do not post more than once a week when it comes to advertising for your book.

Where to from here? Oh yes, I attended a panel called Indie publishing 201. This covered some of the same marketing things, but it also asked use the question of Who are you as a writer? I answered this in a heart beat, but then hesitated a bit. I introduce myself as a Paranormal Romance author, with a hint of steampunk. That's who I am...but before last year, I thought I was only a PNR author, not a steampunk, then suddenly that was added to my list. Think on this, sometimes the answer might change and some times it surprises you.

We covered covers in this panel as well and how important it is, especially with stock photos, to make your cover stand out, in a good way! Don't use just standard stock, put a couple (no more than 3) images together to make a new one, use photo shop to alter it, just the smallest altercation can make it look completely different. If you can, pay for original art.

Oh and editing, man this made me feel small. I have beta readers and then I have a final editor (now two of them), one of the woman suggested having NO LESS than 5 editors look for final mistakes and typos. It's not that I don't agree with the more eyes the better, I was just taken aback on how many people she suggested. You want to put the best work out there you can. I agree 100% with that.

Best tip: Cross market with other people, both in blogs and in books.

I'm sure I have so much more information in my head, but I'm going to stop this here. Some of the stuff I learned doesn't apply to everyone, but I'm putting it specifically towards my writing life. Again, if you get a chance to go to this convention do it! I'll see you all there in 2014.

Formatting Is A Bitch

For me anyways, there has been no bigger bitch than formatting. Not just the interior but the exterior of my book as well. I used templates provided by CreateSpace and it still took me over two weeks to get it right.

Now granted I did have anyone right here telling me what to do either, I asked Alexandra when I'd run into major problems (and that girl loves formatting! For her it is enjoyable, for me it is nothing but a giant headache). She offered that if I couldn't get it then she could do it for me, but I figured that this was one aspect that I needed to figure out myself. Unfortunately it was a massive pain in the ass, but eventually it all got settled.

So what went wrong, even when using templates? Quite honestly, I still have no idea on some of the errors. But here's the breakdown:

I used the formatted Template for 6x9 paperback on CreateSpace. All you really have to do in this template is copy and paste chapter by chapter, type in your title, author name, dedications, acknowledgement. The margins (gutter margins, headers, etc) are already in place for you as is the spacing for the start of the chapters. It's set up pretty easy, or at least should have been easy.

Now some of my two weeks was spent just being extremely cautious, because I'd never done this before, I was uber careful and went back over everything I copied and pasted to make sure everything laid out perfectly.

Anyways, the problems I ran into is I wanted to use the cool looking font I used on my cover on my title page. Shouldn't be a big deal, but oh boy was it! First off if you are using a True Type font, congratz! Ding! You've leveled up and can go about your merry way. Most of the time those fonts automatically embed in your document (this is assuming you use the template for MSWord). If they don't embed then it's still pretty easy; you simply go to:

Tools> Options> Save> and from there you just check the little box next to "Embed True Type Fonts". 

Done. If however, you (like me) find yourself using OTF (Open Type Fonts) well buddy…. Be prepared for your formatted file to be rejected. MS Word can't embed OTF's and if you have your heart set on it then your gonna have to switch your game plan.

I was set on it, and determined to figure it out. You have a couple options for submitting your files to CreateSpace, one is MSWord, the other is PDF. So smarty-pants me thought, well I'll do it as a PDF and see if I can outsmart the system. Nope. Didn't work. Back to the drawing board. I looked all through the top bar menu on Adobe and couldn't for the life of me find a way to embed fonts on PDF. I gave up for a day, took a breather and OD'd on chocolate. When I came back I got on Google and did a search "How to embed OTF's in a PDF". I got a hit! Huzzah! It was a video tutorial on how to embed fonts in a PDF. Here's the break down.

Have your file open in adobe (obviously)

Go to: Tools (on the right hand side of your screen)

Then go to: Print Production (if it isn't in the immediate window go to tiny little drop down menu in the far right corner for show/hide panels and click on Print Production there. It will add it to your tools menu)

Next go to: Preflight

A box will open up and load your file and bring up a new menu

From there simple click "embed fonts" 

Then click "Analyze and Fix"

The program will thing for a moment and (if all goes well) it will give you a green check mark and you are good to go.

Save and close.

The second problem I had was the numbering on my extra pages at the beginning. The formatted template numbers everything past the copyright page in i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, and so on. But it also has a blank page between dedication, acknowledgements, table of contents. And the formatting leave any page that is blank without a number, so my sequence was blank page, ii, blank page, iv, blank page, vi, and then the start of the actual book. The system rejected it due to the numbering sequence. After taking another breather before I murdered my computer I went in and deleted all of the page numbering before the start of the book. In my mind those pages don't really need numbers. No one has ever said to me "Oh turn to page iii, this acknowledgement is totally gripping, it's a must read!"

So after three submissions my PDF with embedded fonts and deleted numbering was finally accepted… Party time! Right? Nope. Next came the cover issues.

This one blew my mind because I've made covers for other authors using the exactly same templates from CreateSpace and they have never had a cover rejected, but I go to submit mine and it is rejected due to the font going into the bleed space… But it really wasn't. I mean, hello, I know how to define a bleed space, I would never put text there… Well as it turns out, my version of "that looks perfectly acceptable" and CreateSpace's version of it are two totally different things. My font that I used on my cover and title page I also used on the spine of the book, but said font is very "frilly" it has little off shoot filigree that comes off the text, little doo-dads, etc. that did in fact go into the bleed space. My thinking was it's no biggie if they get cut off because they are just inconsequential little flares, CreateSpace however saw them as important parts of the word and there for bumped it back to me.

In the end they won that battle, I changed the font on the spine to something a bit more mainstream and called it battle lost, I'd won the battle of embedding fonts and the number sequencing scrimmage. So in the end we called it Mia: 2 CreateSpace: 1, signed the peace treaty that saved my laptop and sanity from dying a slow painful death and the proof's of Waking Up In Bedlam were order!

So I have 5 proofs/ARC's. They arrived this week and I am very excited <3

The home stretch and the end of your rope.

I'm writing this for Mia, because she's in the home stretch *cheers*. She's ordered her ARCs from Createspace for the paper backs so she and a few others can go through and look for last grammar changes and typos. While all of you are cheering her on, this is what I want to explain to you. This process isn't easy. Trying to balance it with life, isn't easy, none of this shit is easy. There are hours of stress involved, working with Betas, working with covers, an editor and getting ready to release your baby into the world. Those who say that they have no anxiety over releasing a book or a short story are lying to you. In their head they are wondering about bad reviews, missed typos, and haters. There is sleep loss at night and long days of preparing.

So what does an author do when they get to the end of their rope? The home stretch is right there within their reach and it just seems that the world is piling more and more on top of them? The same thing anyone else does. They vent, they breath, they step back, once things ebb a little bit, they get back to it. By things I mean stress. There are deadlines to meet, even in the self-publishing world. Deadlines get things done, stress is a part of that. There are other stresses that aren't writing related, family, jobs (not all writers get to stay at home), health and so on. I can't tell you what Mia does, but I can tell you what I do.

I make a list, things get priorities, does it have to be done by that date? Okay, it gets moved to the top of the list, anything with a due date before that is moved above it. That helps me get a realistic look at what is going on. When it comes to family, obviously they take priority, but I know my situation isn't the same as everyone. I have great friends who help me when it comes to crunch time, they help watch my child for a day while I get work done.  When it comes to health...well to be honest I don't take the best care of myself, but I do know when it's time to say I have to nap with the baby instead of work. The newest thing I do when life tries to drag me down, I run. My thoughts go like this when I approach the treadmill. "This is going to be 30 minutes I could use for something else." I get on, throw on some angry music and go for it. I always feel better after and I always sleep better those nights. It's a win win....

Here's the thing, you have to find what works for you. This is a stressful career, you need to find a way to help curb that stress a little. Meditation, walking, just sitting for a little bit. You won't get anything done if you're too stressed out to think. All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy. Remember that. You don't want to go crazy or you'll burn yourself out. Take time for you, even if that just means switching to a project without a deadline for a little bit.

Let us all wish Mia good luck with Waking up in Bedlam! We all want to see it on the shelf and will be cheering her on as she runs that home stretch! <3

So Close

My SPE is a little late today and short because I've been trying to wrap my head around formatting. It's headache inducing, let me just say that right now.

The good thing about it is that it is one step, one giant step closer to getting Waking Up In Bedlam self-published and in print. I am in a mix of excited, scared, and still not quite sure if it is ready yet. Maybe I will never feel 100% ready. I mean, who is ever completely ready to pour your heart and soul onto paper and then distribute it to the masses not knowing if they are going to love it, hate it, or fall somewhere in between.

Regardless it's time to put it out there. I was hoping for another round of editing before ordering my proofs but time is running out on a couple of fronts, so after I hear back from one of my beta readers, make whatever changes need to be made, I will be ordering some proof copies to go over myself, and to send out as ARC's for whomever I can find to review.

When I finish sorting out the how-to's of formatting I will share what (if anything) I've learned, but so far all I've learned is that my hurts after hours of pouring over formatting guidelines for Createspace. And sadly, I haven't even touched the formatting guides for all the other formats out there.

But with that said:

I am one more step closer to my goal. One more step closer to touching the stars.

Balancing

Life is a balancing act. We all know that and some times the best plans fall through the cracks. I hate when that happens. I'm a scheduler. I like to know what time, when, and where long before it's supposed to happen. However, that rarely happens. I live in a house with my husband, my child, two cats, seven puppies (outside) and one adult dog (also outside), but my life can get unpredictable. So can my writing. I know you've all been waiting eagerly for Mia's Waking up and Bedlam, and I hope you've all been just as eagerly waiting for my In Black and White. The thing is, our writing life kind of caught us by surprised, dragged us under, and held us hostage.

We were both contracted to write books for Ellora's Cave. Crazy, I know. But as this blog is about Self-Publishing, I'll keep that business to a minimum, because obviously, that is not part of SPE. That being said, we've both been busy trying to balance everything, and that's going to happen to you.

As an author, you don't just write one project and say 'I'm done!' Especially as an indie author. If you read any of the marketing books out there for authors, I can promise you with in the top 5 ways to market, "Write the next book." Will be one of them. Okay, well you can write the next book after you edit, spit polish and shine and release the first one, right? Well, that depends on the type of release schedule you want to have and how many series you have. Typically in the traditional author world, it takes about a year for the next book in the series to come, some times six months. And fans are willing to wait for that, especially if they love the author. It can work that way in the Indie world too, but you don't want people to forget your name.

Now, I'm not telling you to write crap and throw it out there, because you want quality, but quantity counts for something too. My point is, never stop writing, figure out how to balance your life, your kids, your husband, your work. Stop making excuses like 'I'm too busy' or 'my day job sucks the life out of me'. I get that. I do, when I wrote one of my first novels I was working three jobs. I wrote on Lunch, between shifts, and late at night, granted I was young then, but I managed. On top of that, learn to roll with the punches, sometimes you have to put a project on hold, or sometimes something unexpected happens for it. Black and White is in limbo until I hear back about something pretty specific for it. It drives me nuts, but I have to work with it.

There's an experiment in Chris Baty's No Plot, No Problem, that I thought worked great for finding time to write. Take an spreadsheet, and put times down the side of it, starting when you wake up and going to your typical bed time. Now, track what you do each hour of your day, once you've done that for a week, go back and look at it. Anything that could be consider a time waister (I.E. Playing Candy Crush on Facebook and hour before bed. Watching that TV show you're really not into, but it was on anyways.) highlight it in red. Now look at that, really look at it and you will see when you can fit writing in.

Here's a glance at my typical weekday (I normally take weekends off for more family time.):
5:30am: Get up, make husband his lunch and breakfast
6:00am: Go back to bed. (you'll see why I do this in a bit.)
8:00am: Get up with daughter, get ready for the day, make both of us breakfast
8:45am: Feed dogs and cats, make sure there are still 7 puppies.
9:00am-11:30am: Spend time with daughter, work with her on shapes and colors, play games, attempt to work with letters. (if there is any independent play time here, I use it to do chores and occasional research.) some times go to the park, that kind of thing.
11:30: Lunch time
12:00 (some times 12:15): Daughter goes down for nap, I work on what ever is on my to-do-list. (writing, editing, blogging etc.)
2:30ish: Daughter gets up from nap, so we read, chase her around, love on her.
5:00pm: Start dinner
6:00pm: Eat dinner
6:30pm: bath time for daughter
7:00pm: Bed time for daughter, work out time for mommy. (this is normally a 30 min run)
7:30pm: Shower
8:00pm-12am: Work, writing, editing, whatever is on my list. My rule is, if I'm too tired to work, I have to go to bed. I can't play games until midnight
3:00am: Get up, feed cat.

So that's kind of how my day goes, I'm sure there are little details missing, but I tend to get a lot done during the day. The point of this post? Balance your life, find the time to get shit done, stop making excuses.

Burnt Out On Editing

Burn out. It sucks.

Due to my burn out I would totally end this blog post right there but I feel the obligation to explain myself. I am burnt out on editing Waking Up In Bedlam. True story.

I know as a writer I'm supposed to be all "this is the greatest thing ever and every part of this process is so much fun!" and others will say "If you aren't having fun and enjoying it then you aren't a real writer." I call bullshit on both those statements. No one is having fun and enjoying every millisecond of the writing process, some of us can admit when something is sucking and draining us. I don't think it makes me less of a writer to admit that I am burnt out. Note: I said "burnt out" I did not say "quitting" or "giving up", I just think it's healthy to admit out loud that I am burnt out. End of story.

Why am I burnt out? 1) I'm a perfectionist, I want WUIB to be perfect because I am so damn scared of the reviews that will say something along the lines of "You can tell this is self-published by the editing." 2) It's hard to kill the lines or scenes you love, even when it is what is best for the story. 3) Plot Holes. One of my beta readers found some plot holes, one of which requires rewriting an entire chapter. How the hell did I miss that? *shrugs* I have no clue, but it is there plain as day.

So there ya go, that is my bitch/complaint. Editing, I am not a fan of yours. But as much as I don't like editing, it is a process that is necessary. It is a critical step that must be completely thoroughly in order to put out quality work. As much as it might be a drag you have to just pick yourself back up and hit it again. I've been working in 2-3 chapter chunks at a time. That seems to help, I don't get so hung up on it and can work through my blahs as I try to map out that re-do chapter and sort these plot holes out.

Also, on the subject of editing, someone suggested autocrit.com to me the other day, I tried the free version and it was pretty awesome, except for the fact that the free version only let's you do 500 words at a time and gives you very limited tools (by very limited I mean only two). While it was very fun and I think it would be great for me to use in my first draft edits to take some of the burden off of my beta readers/editors there is no way I could afford the price-tag, for the full version it is over $100 and that my friends is just not doable. If I have time I'll do the free version in chunks, although a 60k manuscript would take 120 visits to the site.

Do you enjoy editing? Are you a stickler for grammar already so editing is a breeze for you? Do you use editing software?