Monday, August 22, 2011

I'm a Platform-Building Campaigner

I just ran across a fun project by author/blogger Rachel Harrie called the Writers' Platform Building Campaign. The beauty of the idea is in its simplicity -- support other authors who in turn will support you. Not in terms of cash (sadly), but as blog/twitter/fb/website followers and new like-minded online author pals. Rachel writes:

"There are so many of us out there. Aspiring authors, bloggers (whether established or beginning), industry peeps, even published authors, all of whom want to build their online platforms. We write insightful posts and articles, actively blog within the blogosphere, take part in challenges, competitions, and contests galore.

We have the passion and the drive to make it, but…we could all do with a bit of support.

So I started thinking. What if we link all these people together? What if we create a way to meet people in a similar position, people who genuinely want to help build our online platform while at the same time building theirs? People who want to pay it forward in the spirit of writerly writerness and blogging beautificity (and see it come back to them in turn).

And so, my Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign was born."
 Sounds like a nice way to meet new friends so I'm going to give it a shot (the Campaign runs from August 22nd to October 31st). If you're an author/blogger who's looking to build your "online platform," maybe you should, too!

Monday, August 1, 2011

The Vortex of Doubt and Self-Loathing

Are you an author who suffers from TVDSL? I know I am. Check out Claire Legrand's excellent post on the one surefire way to banish it from your thoughts.

In other news, I'm on track for ordering proof copies by the end of this week (and by saying that, have guaranteed it won't happen until next week or later). Got to fix a medium-level story flaw pointed out by my excellent editor, Darren, and have the cover tweaked by my excellent graphic artist, Mike.

In other other news, I got nuthin'.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Scooby Doo in "The Siren's Song"

Unhappy Fish Freak
Hey kids! I wrote an episode of Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated that'll air this coming Tuesday (6/14/11) on Cartoon Network at 7:30/6:30 Central.

I think it's a pretty cool episode with a fair chunk of the series wide story arc being revealed. That's one of the things I'm really enjoying about this Scooby manifestation -- we get to learn about the back story of "the gang" and that maybe all of these seemingly random monster events are somehow interrelated. Anyway, the show's producers have a lot to keep in mind since they're not just generating the typical Scooby Doo "monster du jour" story lines we're used to seeing.

In this episode the gang battles Fish Freaks, there's a fun Scrappy Doo reference, and Velma makes a "special friend." Check it out and let me know what you think!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Good Grief, I'm a Font Nerd

I came to that (possibly sad) conclusion yesterday after spending most of the day trying to decide which font I'll use for my novel, Leonard the Great: Dragonfriend. As I've mentioned before, when you self-publish, you have to do everything -- including formatting and choosing the font for the interior pages of your book. There are very talented professionals in traditional publishing whose only job is to do just that so you know the importance the big guys attach to this part of the publishing process. They're called Book Designers and they (the good ones, anyway) live for their craft, delighting in choosing just the right font for a particular book. Check out this cool little collection of video shorts from Penguin to get an idea of what I'm talking about. These folks are passionate!

While I'm not as energized by the subtle differences between Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia, I did totally key in to the importance of font choice. A lot of the pros use pricey custom fonts with names like Minion, Bembo, and Gotham that are purchased from font or type "foundries." These days custom fonts are largely designed at corporate entities like Adobe or Apple, but a surprising number are still created by much smaller companies and individuals. To give an idea of the costs involved, Adobe currently lists their "Font Folio 11" (with over 2300 fonts) for $2599.00. An individual font like "Adobe Caslon Pro" currently costs $169.00. Why so expensive? I'm guessing it's because the designers not only had to create individual numbers and letters for each font in its "regular" form, they also had to do their complete alphabet in italics, bold, bold italics, and so forth. That's a lot of design work.

A large publishing company can justify dropping that kind of cash to make their books look "just right," but that's definitely out of my league. The good thing is that even the lowly Microsoft Word foundry has a fairly impressive array of fonts to choose from -- for free (well, not technically, but you know what I mean).

Conventional wisdom holds that large blocks of printed text are easier to read when in "serif" form. With a serif font (Times New Roman, Bookman Old Style, etc.) you get letters with little flourishes or "semi-structural details," a letter with "feet," for example. Sans serif fonts (like the aforementioned Helvetica), on the other hand, have none of these embellishments and are considered easier to read on your computer screen because of their simplicity. Side Note: This blog's composition font (what I see when I'm writing it) is serif but its display font (what you see when reading it) is sans serif. I have no idea why Google does it this way.

Since I was choosing the text font for a printed book (which includes the Kindle edition with its "virtual ink" technology that, even though it's digital, is seen by your eyes as a regular printed page and not a "screen"), I stuck with the numerous serif fonts available. I formatted my novel in a 6x9 configuration (the eventual "trim" or final size), single spaced, and "justified" on both sides. I have to say that it was no small thrill to see my little manuscript properly formatted for print -- it looked just like a "real" book! Next I did "select all" and applied the serif fonts to the manuscript pages, one at a time. Wow! Talk about cool. Yes, it was about this time that the "font nerd" term came to mind.

The differences were subtle yet impressive. MS Word's default font is "Times New Roman" and using this one, the manuscript came out to 248 pages. Because of seemingly insignificant attributes like letter size and spacing between characters, other fonts dropped it down to as low as 234 or pushed it all the way up to 309! I had done a little internet hunting to see what fonts professional book designers and other self-pubbed authors were using and if those fonts were listed in Word, I gave them a shot.

I chose eight serif finalists that seemed to offer visual appeal and that elusive "readability" factor. If you think I'm making too big a deal about this, think about the times you may have had difficulty getting through a book even though you were enjoying the content. This usually happens to me with sci fi paperbacks from low-end publishers who end up reducing their fonts to the smallest readable size possible with minimal spacing between characters, sentences, and paragraphs. They do this to save money as more pages means higher production costs, but the end result is a high degree of unreadability that sometimes makes it seem like I'm looking at a solid page of side by side letters rather than words and sentences. That's what readability is all about -- a pleasant-to-look-at font on a properly formatted page.

The finalists included Book Antigua, Goudy Old Style, Bookman Old Style, Georgia, Century Schoolbook, Baskerville Old Face, and Palatino, but, ultimately, I went with Garamond (created by sixteenth century type designer, Claude Garamond), 12 pt with 1.15 spacing between lines. Here's a sample:
"Leonard felt that he had truly lost his mind when he found himself jumping over the bridge wall and sliding down the muddy banks of the Smellet River toward a very large dragon that he really didn’t know at all."
As you can see, it's a "friendly" font with good spacing between individual letters/words and a high degree of readability. I really like it.

Should this post be taken as an expert treatise on font selection? Heck no! I basically stumbled around until I found something that worked for me. But if you're an independent author who's having to design your own book's interior, I do hope that you'll give font selection the attention it's due.

By the way, after all that exploration and experimentation I decided to see what font was used in the Harry Potter books since they have the same target readership as Leonard. 12pt. Adobe Garamond! I'm not sure how Adobe's Garamond differs from Microsoft's (enough to be proprietary, obviously), but I couldn't tell the difference and as far as I'm concerned, what's good enough for Ms. Rowling's little trifle is good enough for mine!

Got any font or formatting love to share? Leave your thoughts and tips in the comments.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Getting It Right the First Time

YA author/blogger Angela Scott has a great post on why it's so very vital to make the best first impression possible with your self-published novel. She says:
"I would think, with the prejudice that self-publishing experiences, that someone contemplating that route would do EVERYTHING, going above and beyond what is even necessary, to prove people wrong and produce a perfect, polished piece of work. But they’re not."
I couldn't agree more and probably err on the side of over-caution for fear of putting out something that looks amateurish.

Angela also offers a few tips on what to keep in mind before pushing the "publish" button. Check out the full post on her blog.

Personally, I'm a big fan of beta-readers (asking writerly/well-read types whose work I respect to take a look and gives notes - which I'm then smart and humble enough to follow). Even with all their help, I still recognize the importance of hiring someone who has the sole responsibility of catching all the dumb mistakes that I know still exist in my manuscript (even after some 10+ self-edits). That's why my first-to-be-self-published manuscript is currently with a professional editing/proofreading service.

Got any tips of your own? What kind of things do you try to take care of before putting your manuscript out there on the open market?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Behold my Super-Awesome Backers!

A Few of My Backers
I am a very fortunate man. During my recent (and hopefully not too annoying) fundraising effort on Kickstarter, these folks stepped up to the plate and made a contribution to Leonard's cause. Because of them, the book went from "Gonna publish it someday." to "Gonna publish it this summer." Some are family, some are friends, and some are complete strangers -- all are SUPER-AWESOME!!!

Here they are in all their alphabetically-ordered, super-awesome glory...

Jim Allen
Ed Brown
Anne Chivetta
Chris Chivetta
Chris Cusack
Peggy Etra
Patricia Eschbacher
Roger Eschbacher, Sr.
Rick Fiedler
Coleen Forward
James Giannini
Toni Gilbert
Paul Gross
Cyndi Ruprecht Hunt
James Judd
Chris Landes
Traci Newman
Brian Palermo
Adam Pava
Keith Robinson
Japke Rosink
Lisa Tucker-Ruprecht
Stephen J. Ruprecht
Andrew Thomas
Jeff Zimmer

Look upon their names and feel awe because they are true giants and giantesses of SUPER-AWESOMENESS!!!

Monday, May 23, 2011

To the Editor!

Just a quick update to let you know I sent the manuscript for Leonard off to the editing service, yesterday. Hooray! I opted for their full-service treatment which not only includes a proofread (punctuation, grammar, etc.), but also a more detailed edit and overview. A professional edit is the main reason I launched the Kickstarter project so it's truly a thrill to finally get the ball rolling in that department.

My editor told me I could expect to get it back in around three weeks, possibly sooner. Once that happens, I'll make the suggested changes, then start cranking on getting Leonard the Great: Dragonfriend listed on Amazon, both in Kindle form and as a physical book.

In other news, steady progress is being made toward completion of the first draft of the sequel to this book. On Friday, Leonard was swallowed by a monster. Hope he survives. ;c)

Eater of the Dead: A Dragon Friend Excerpt

Just in time for Halloween! Check out a featured Dragon Friend excerpt on the BestSelling Reads blog: "The spooky season is upon us! H...