Do You Have Your New Cover Yet? Why yes, as a matter of fact I do!

I posted this on my other blog last night but wanted to be sure I shared it with you guys, too. Ain't it purdy? I don't think I could be more pleased with it myself and major kudos go to my book designer, Mike Wykowski.

What do you think?

"Fortune and Love Favor the Bold" aka "Go For It!"

Ovid

I think every author knows that a nice blurb, praise from a well-respected peer, can help potential readers make up their minds about whether it's worth taking a chance on a book. Because of this, I asked two mg/ya fantasy authors, whose work I greatly admire, to blurb Dragonfriend and was delighted when they agreed. I hope they don't mind me sharing their blurbs prior to publication.

Keith Robinson (author of the awesome Island of Fog series) wrote:

"Dragonfriend starts with a chuckle then quickly develops into a brave quest, climaxing in a truly epic battle between knights, dragons and fiends from Hell. Honestly, what more could you want?"

Wow. And as far as blurbs go, there's absolutely nothing more I could want!

Carolyn Hennesy (author of the delightful Pandora series) wrote:

"A clever, witty and wonderfully written side story to the Arthurian legend. Eschbacher has given never-considered twists, turns, fun details and tremendous heart to a world so often painted with a chivalrous but rather drab brush. Leonard is a marvelous hero-in-the-making and Mantooth is the first dragon in a long time who really deserves a hug."

Wow, again. Humbling praise!

The thing is, I wouldn't have gotten these great blurbs if I hadn't pushed aside my reticent nature, swallowed my congenital discomfort at requesting a favor from a "stranger," and just asked (in an extremely polite and professional manner).

Traditionally published books have the advantage in this area in that the publisher is the one responsible for securing blurbs from relevant authors. Obviously, we independent authors don't have this advantage and have to do the footwork ourselves. This can get kind of tricky and downright uncomfortable for the prospective "blurber" as they are dealing directly with the book's author, the "blurb-ee." What if they end up hating the book and don't want to give a blurb? Awkward? To say the least! The blurbers have every right to say "no thanks" and would be quite justified in doing so.

That being said...

"Fortune and love favor the bold," is one of the quotes I use to motivate myself to attempt to accomplish good things that make me feel uncomfortable (see the above congenital defect). It's from Ovid, the Roman poet, and is basically a fancy way of saying, "Go for it!" Independent authors have to do this time and time again during the arduous process of bringing their book to publication. Heck, the very decision to self-publish is a major "Go for it!" moment. So, while I'm not saying you should start bugging authors for blurbs in a creepy, stalker-ish manner, I am saying that if you've developed a sincere and honest online relationship with an author whose work you respect, there's nothing wrong with asking them for a blurb. Just don't take it personally if they say "No, thanks."

Any thoughts or tips on the art of the blurb? From both sides of the equation? Share them in the comments!

NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

Love a good sci fi or fantasy read? Love a good flowchart? Then you've got to check out SF Signal's awesome FLOWCHART of NPR's Top 100 list.

I've read a good number of these titles, but now realize I've got some catching up to do -- not like that's a bad thing. Nope, not a bad thing at all.

A Quick & Angry Cafe Rant

The second Campaign Challenge called for "a quick, angry cafe rant" in which we were asked to do the following:

Write a blog post in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should:

• include the word "imago" in the title
• include the following 4 random words: "miasma," "lacuna," "oscitate," "synchronicity,"

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional and included in the word count), make reference to a mirror in your post.

For those who want an even greater challenge (optional), make your post 200 words EXACTLY!

I wasn't able to squeeze in a mirror reference, but I did manage to bring it in at exactly two hundred words (harder than it sounds). And so, for your reading pleasure I give you:

***

Imago and the Rain of Steel

Imago was there when I walked in. He was always there.

After the nearby “luxury lofts” opened up, he’d invaded our café with his laptop and his smartphone and his loudness, turning it from a writer’s Shangri-La into a miasma of literary despair.

Looking around, I saw the place was filled with regulars, all struggling authors. We’d earned our chairs by ordering a cup, then shutting up and writing. Imago, named after the word printed on his “personal” mug, was killing the vibe. He’d shattered our creative mojo with his nonstop blathering.

I ordered then sat down next to Benny.

“Imago’s wearing a Lacuna Coil t-shirt. Bet he’s never even heard their music,” he whispered. “And the douche used ‘oscitate’ in a sentence before you came in. I looked it up. It means, ‘to yawn’. I hate him.”

“Good. That’ll help.”

Barista Meg brought my coffee and waited. They were all waiting.

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

With clumsy synchronicity, we rose from our seats while Meg locked the door. Imago found himself surrounded by authors—with hammers.

“What?”

I snorted, clueless as always.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, fingering the handle of a shortened sledge. “SHUT THE F**K UP!”

***
Personally, I like the visual of a bunch of angry authors with hammers, but maybe that's just me. ;c)

UPDATE: Here's a link to the list. My story's #72 (just in case you're looking for something to "like").

SORT OF EMBARRASSING UPDATE:

see comments

Animation Insider

Jinkies! They interviewed you?

I was interviewed about writing for animation over at Animation Insider a while back but, for some reason, didn't post the link. Must be my impressive humility at work (or my addled brain). While you're there, check out the rest of the site. Even if you're just a little bit into animation, you'll groove on the fun interviews with folks on all levels of that branch of the showbiz tree.

Novel-wise, things are cruising along nicely. Doing a little bit every day to make the end of the month publish date happen. Currently, I'm trying to finalize the cover (a lot of the promotional stuff hinges on having that locked down). Very early feedback from one of my proofers is positive. Let's hope that trend continues!

Proofers Activate!

Proofer in Action

As of today, all the proof copies for Dragonfriend have either been mailed out or hand delivered to shadowy figures across the land. Known to me as "Proofers," I await their feedback with bated breath. They are my last, best hope for an error free read.

After their changes are made, it'll be time for final tweaks on the interior and cover design, another "final" proof copy and then, Then, THEN...a vigorous smackdown on the "Approve" button! In the meantime, I'm working toward completing the first draft of the second book in the series (so expect to see some movement on the long-neglected progress bar to the right).

Elsewhere in the news, I have an irresistible urge to list my top three favorite Pixar films:

1. The Incredibles: One of the best animated films of all time and the top of my Pixar list due to superb animation, voice casting, and a top notch script. (Side note to Brad Bird: Please come up with a story idea you like and do the sequel. NOW!)

2. Monsters, Inc.: Hilarious, full of heart without being schmaltzy, a completely original setting. Works on every level and like all of the top Pixar films is infinitely re-watchable. I'm very happy they're doing a prequel to this one.

3. Up: Great characters, fun story, and heart -- the magical mixture that Pixar seems to be the best at doing (notable exception: Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda -- so good I have to keep reminding myself it's not a Pixar project).

So there you have it. How does my Pixar list compare to yours?

They're Here!

The proof copies for Dragonfriend just arrived and I have to say they look pretty darned cool! There are already a few things I'll probably adjust  -- trim size, paper color and such. The font might be a bit small, by about a point, too. This is the kind of stuff that you need actual proof copies for -- to see what the book will physically look like so you can fix potential problem areas. Copies now go out to my proofers (real word?) who will act as my final line of defense against grammatical errors, typos, and idiotic plot blunders.

This day has been a long time coming so please allow me to geek out on myself for a brief moment (deep breath)...THIS IS SO AWESOME!

Proofin' It

Ordered the proof copies for Leonard on Saturday. HOORAY!!! Granted, I'm a little behind on my goal of making that happen by the end of last month but hey, it's done.

What happens next? I'll get the proofs back by Tuesday 9/6 (I'll post a picture when they arrive) and then get copies to friends for a FINAL error check. After the (hopefully) minor fixes are completed and my talented cover designer Mike Wykowski makes some tweaks, I'll upload the FINAL manuscript and cover files to Createspace. They'll check them for proper formatting, etc., and send me an email saying everything's cool. Then, I will push the "approved" button and at some point within a week or two of doing that, the book will be officially published and listed on Amazon. The Kindle and Nook editions will soon follow.

When will all this happen? I'm hoping it will be sooner rather than later but if you insisted on a more specific time frame  I'd tell you "by the end of September...ish." In the meantime, I'll be playing with a new ebook generator created by my author friend Keith Robinson (he's written a fun fantasy /adventure series called Island of Fog which I heartily recommend). I'll also be working on generating things like postcards and bookmarks as the finalized media become available.

By the way, I've mixed the title around a little, changing it to Dragonfriend (Leonard the Great, Book One). I think this is a cleaner and the single word sounds cooler, imho, and will read better in the Amazon thumbnails.What do you think?

UPDATE: Just got an email from Createspace telling me that my order has already shipped!

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!

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'.

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!

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.

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?

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!!!

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)