Adventures with Amazon

Making the choice to go to Kindle's self publishing program has been fun for me.  Bit by bit I have been learning more and more about the world of publishing and I'm quite enjoying it.  It was a simple process for someone who knows their way around a computer.  The whole process took about 48 hours in all.  They have a detailed process where they review your book and make sure everything in order before they create your amazon kindle page.  I also elected to publish just with them for now in order to be in their select program where people who pay for that service can read the book for free.  

For me, I see this as a way to develop my skills as an author.  Going into this, I knew I wanted to publish in some way so that I can receive the necessary feedback to become a better author.  In the beginning I had friends and family read the book chapter by chapter so they could tell me what they did or did not like about the story.  Then I decided to seek out a professional Editor.  I was very pleased with the work that she had done, which in fact got me pretty much ready for getting the first book out.  

You can get a copy of Primal (Episode 1: Escape) on your Kindle device or iPad for only .99 cents on Amazon.  

Getting back on track

Its hard to put into words what it takes to get things back on track.  Over the past few months I've been unemployed and have had to make many changes in my life.  One of those changes was that I had to put the book on the back burner for awhile but this has given me some time to get things into perspective and make a few choices that I have been dwelling on about the project.  Now that I am back to wonderful employment, I'm back to writing and I hope to have a few good announcements soon about the project.

Its good to be back to writing and its good to be back to blogspot.  I hope to have many more updates soon!

Great Self Published Books

You know, as I work on my book I like to think that when I finish I will find a agent and a publisher and everything will be great.  But the harsh reality is that its not going to be that simple.  I know that there is a chance that I might self publish and when researching the pros and cons of that I found that there are some really good self published authors out there.  So, I decided to start a blog series where I review their books and hopefully interview them shortly after.

So last week I went to Amazon to see what the fuss is all about with self publishing and perhaps find a few gems that are being self published.  To my amazement, right off the bat I found one such author, Jason Tesar.

http://www.jasontesar.com/ 

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4474142.Jason_Tesar

Jason is the author of "The Awakened", a science fiction/fantasy book series that takes you into the past where myths and legends are brought to life.  I just finished reading the first book in the series and I have to say that it is one of the few fantasy books I can say I truly liked and enjoyed reading.  I think a lot of it has to do with the well developed characters that you get to know and like along the way and that this book is not a simple one.  This book is a lot deeper then you might expect, it has a political side, a mythical side, a military side!

Something that drew me to the book was not the fact that it was free on amazon at the time but its reviews.  The reviews of a book can sometimes make it or break it.  I don't know how it affects self published authors when someone from amazon can submit whatever they like, even if they didn't truly read the book, I have to expect it would cause a negative affect.  I read that some people did not like the authors writing style, I however enjoyed it.  A few of the reviews down trotted the book because it was self published and that's not right.  The fact that someone self published a book does not mean its a bad book, hard to read, or not edited.  I found that the first book of the awakened was well written and edited.   Not all of the reviews are negative.  Out of 190 reviews, over 140 of them are 4 and 5 stars.  

I think I learned a lot from Jason's book.  Being a aspiring author I wanted to see what was out there for me, what future I might be facing when I finally finish my book.  I believe that this series could have been published with a major publisher but for reasons unknown to me (as of right now) Jason chose to self publish this series and if I have to go down that road and have to choose to do the same, it doesn't look so bad.

Jason has another book series coming out soon entitled "Wandering Stars"  This is how he describes this new series.

 "Deep in the recesses of the human soul, echoes and shadows survive—remnants of a time long-forgotten. Refusing to die, they strive for existence, taking the form of myths and legends which continue to shape human history across the boundaries of time and culture.

This is their story—where it all began"

Personally I am looking forward to this series and will review it once I get my hands on a copy.  For anyone looking for a copy of "The Awakened" you can follow this link.  As of right now the first book is free so all of you science fiction/fantasy fans out there need to go and get yourself a digital copy while you can.  I'm sure you will enjoy the story and will want to buy the rest of the series.  I'm hoping to interview Jason soon and add his views to a series of blogs I am planning that covers the pro's vs cons of self publishing.  

Eureka!

So today it hit me, the one thing that I've been going over and over in my head since I started writing my book.... The title!

Its been a real work in progress.  My story is a mash up of two semi popular genres so finding a name that hasn't been taken or used and abused has been pretty hard.  Every time I find something I go over it on amazon or google and see if someone already used it.  But I think I found the one for me!   For now I'm not going to say much about the book, except whats already been said.  But in due time more information will come out.  

I'm quite excited!

Suggested Reading

A quick post before I get fitted for a tux for a friends wedding. Something that Im going to have to get away from is editing each chapter as I finish it.  As I near 20,000 words I find myself lost in the first chapter, editing, and reediting the opening lines.  Today I spent the better part of my morning doing just this.

As a developing writer, I must force myself to avoid going back to work on things.  There will be plenty of time for all of that when I'm finished with the first draft.

Oh, also one thing I might point out for anyone who's looking into this world of writing.  Check out the book "On Writing" by Stephen King.  Its packed with a lot of information and from a viewpoint that we all can relate too.  Someone who's just trying to make it in life as a author and what he had to go though in life to make it.  It was a real eye opener for me.

Where I go to write (For now)

You know there are times that I find it very hard to sit down and write on my novel.  I find that I get distracted very easy and this was something that was very bothersome to me.  So about a month ago, I sat down to write and I found me playing with my bird Marty while he was out of his cage.  Now don’t take this as I’m not serious about my writing, because I am.  But there’s a good chance that I got a very short attention span.  This is something that I’ve dealt with for most of my life.  I get distracted very easily and I can find myself way off target when I’m going to get things done.  So I did what every normal person does… I Googled my problem.

It quickly became apparent that I am not the only person with this problem.  Like me there are others out there searching for answers.  I found several suggestions that were helpful and some not so.  One suggestion that I found is what has helped me the most  It comes down to this, if you think that your problem is that your distracted easily or too often then you need to sit down and address your situation and what you are doing in order to get your book done.  No matter the subject is, if you are like me and have a short attention span you must take the distractions out of the equation.  For me I had to get away from the TV, games, Ipad, and Facebook.

To accomplish this I come up with a game plan.  I like in Oklahoma City and near where I live there is a Library a few miles from my home and while the kiddos are in school, I started going there to write.  This works for me because the Moore Public Library is nice, quiet and has several comforts that I can enjoy while I’m writing.  For instance, At home I tend to write on my laptop while in bed and although you might think that this would be comfortable but I get terrible back aches from sitting in an odd position for hours at a time.  But at this library, they have wonderful armchairs that are very comfortable!  I can write all day (Backache free) if I have the time and if I go in the mornings there are very few people there to distract me. 

The Moore Public Library.

Another thing I tend to do is turn off the Wi-Fi on my computer while I write.  I find that my mind won’t drift off to things that would normally distract me like Facebook or the news.  I know that it’s simple to just turn the Wi-Fi back on but if I’m in the right mindset, I won’t do anything but focus on the task at hand.  This has helped me tremendously, even though the library had Wi-Fi, I don’t use it.  If I need to research for my book or look a fact up, I tend to use my smart phone so that I don’t get too distracted. 

The only problem I face now is that I want to get work done on the book while I’m at home in the evenings or on the weekends.  I find that it’s not easy to do when the kids are always distracting me.  I love them to death and I do enjoy that I get to spend all of my free time with them; I just need to figure out a balance so that they know that I’m working, even on the weekends.  Also we have a TV in just about every room and it’s very easy to turn it on and forget all about the work I planned on getting done.    

But that’s a problem I’m working on now.  If you have any suggestions, don’t be afraid to leave a comment, who knows, it could help me tremendously in growing as a writer! 

Becoming a Blogger

Although I always told myself that I would never be a "Blogger", here I am blogging away.  I wanted some way to document my writing progress and the the many things that I will be considering along the way.  I also hope to use this experience to make myself a better author, by building on the knowledge of those who have walked this path.

There is a little learning curve to blogging and the blogger.com website but I feel that I can overcome those obstacles.  

I hope everyone following will enjoy the adventure and perhaps learn something from my experiences.  

Enjoy!