Sky Dance - a Story about Thessalyn in Text and Audio

Thessalyn Clambottom is a gifted, blind child from a peasant family. She’s been sent to the prestigious school of Minstrels on the island of Mance, but she feels like an awkward outsider. Things seem to improve when the school loans her a griffin, Chesher, for reading and navigating. However, Chesher has her own handicap—stumps where her wings should be. One day in the library, they find an ancient book in a language that Chesher can’t or won’t read to Thessalyn. Chesher seems frightened by the mysterious book, but hums a bit of the tune at Thessalyn’s request. The haunting melody is the key that will unlock secrets from the past and change the course of both their futures.

“Sky Dance” is a 10,000-word novelette from the world of Panamindorah, related to the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. “Sky Dance” is a stand-alone story that can be enjoyed without reading Cowry Catchers, but the story will have more meaning for fans of the series. You can purchase the text-only version of the story on Amazon, Smashwords.

EDIT

I have now spun off the Audio as a separate purchase. As of March, 2013, the text is $2.99, and the Audio is $4.99. The audio cover is square as you see below. It's an ebook with instructions for downloading the password-protected audio (very simple, no DRM, just MP3s). The audio is over an hour long. Amazon, Smashwords.

I hope your new year is off to a good start. I am currently working on a short story about Lu for next month. The free audio of Cowry Catchers Book 4 is in release on the podcast website, and the free serialized version of Hunters Unlucky is still in progress on my blog. I'm waiting on 2 more illustrations for Cowry Catchers Book 5, and I'm very closed to finished with the paper editions of that series. I've also gotten some lovely new Cowry Catchers fan art recently that you might enjoy.

I set aside my day job to write for January this year, I've definitely gotten some work done. I hope you enjoy Sky Dance!

Hello, 2013

This Wednesday, I returned from New Media Expo, thereby using the last of the plane tickets in my travel folder. I have made 14 major plane journeys in the last 12 months, so this feels like something to celebrate. Although I had a wonderful time with friends at New Year’s Art Trade and a fantastic time with fellow podcasters at NMX, it didn’t really feel like the new year until now.

So here’s my year in review and my goals for 2013. As mentioned, I traveled a lot this year, though only in the US. I worked in 3 states. I agreed to cover the holidays for a hospital halfway across the country, and that was probably a mistake—not because it was particularly difficult, but because it added a lot of extra plane travel to an already travel-weary year. It was a little too much. I’ll know better next time.

I went to Balticon and Dragon Con, as well as NMX. I hung out with fantastic, brilliant people, and they made me feel at home. I traveled on my own all over Arizona and took a family vacation through Southern Utah, where the scenery is jaw-dropping.

I sold 2,378 ebooks for a total of 4,655 since I started two years ago. I more than doubled my average profit per book when I raised my prices. Although I sold about the same number of books as last year, I made more money this year. The $9.99 Cowry Catchers Complete Series was my best-selling title this year with 719 copies sold. However, The Prophet of Panamindorah Complete Trilogy continues to be my bestseller of all time with 1,161 copies sold. It’s now $7.99, although it was $2.99 for most of the first year. Cowry Catchers Complete Series is far-and-away my highest earner.

I produced and released Cowry Catchers Book 4 in illustrated text and fullcast audio. I spent hours watching InDesign tutorials from Lynda.com and learned to use the program to lay out paper books. After several failed attempts, my cover designer and I managed to produce a good-looking paper version of Cowry Catchers 2. (The final proof came in the mail three days ago!)

I wrote 105,000 words on Hunters Unlucky (for a total of 140,000 words on the novel) and 10,000+ words of annotations published on my blog. I’m not pleased with the word count. It’s a puny output for me. I typically average 1000 words/day when I’m drafting something new. I averaged 1200 words/day for most of the year I wrote Cowry Catchers.

In order to maintain that output in the past, I’ve needed (1) a single, sustained project (which I had) and (2) a predictable schedule with my social needs easily met. That last part I did not have. I’ve got a great set-up with my apartment near friends, but that doesn’t matter when I’m gone for months at a time, doing jobs which are stressful by definition. That’s why these hospitals hire travelers – because they can’t keep permanent staff. These are not the easiest jobs.

I’m not sure I’m ready to give up on the travel thing, although I will examine nearby options that present themselves. I think I need to be more judicious about taking lots of small gigs. The jerky stop-and-start messes with my writing. My computer also began a slow death roll near the middle of the year, which did not help. Fortunately, I jumped ship before it sank. But moving computers always takes time, and you can’t write if your computer is overheating.

Over 100,000 words is the best I’ve done in a year since anesthesia school, so maybe it’s just part of getting back on the horse. Still, I hope to do better this year.

Like most people selling ebooks, I did not see much of a Christmas bump this year—a little, but nothing like last year. January was my best month last year, as people who received ereaders for Christmas filled them with books. Again, I am seeing a bump this January, but not like last year. This corresponds with what most over authors are saying and seems to be a sign that the ereader market is leveling out and finding its normal footing.

I’m still not making a profit on my books. I’m a few thousand dollars behind, mostly because I just purchased the illustrations for Cowry Catchers 5 and also a license for InDesign. InDesign is the (very expensive) industry standard program for laying out the paper books. I could have kept renting it by the month, but I figured in the end, I’d be better off buying it. So I put myself back in the hole. However, I’m confident that my books will dig their way out of again.

I’d like to say that making a profit is one of my goals this year. It’s certainly one of my expectations. But I have no control over whether that happens. I can’t make people buy my work or review it or talk about it. I can only put out great books and stories and make sure people know they exist.

I’d like to release something new for sale every month this year—either a short story or a novel. That’s a high bar to clear, but if I succeed even half the time, I’ll be doing better than last year. Here’s what I’d like to write and the approximate word count. Most of these names will change.

Thessalyn novelette – 10,000*

Lu short story – 6,000

Finish Leopaard short story – 3,000

Finish Hunters Unlucky novel – 60,000

Hunters short story 1 (already written)

Hunters short story 2 – 4,000

The Scarlet Albatross novel – 80,000

Holovarus novella – 30,000

Sunkissed Isles novelette – 20,000

Memoir** - 30,000

That’s 10 things, although 1 or 2 of them might not be able to count towards my goal. I may get more ideas, or I may have a contest or two and do a few more character short stories. If my word counts are accurate (haha! Never), that’s 243,000 words for the year. I know myself well enough to add another 10 or 20K. Let’s say 260,000. And that comes to about 700 words per day. So, there’s my goal.

If I succeed in finishing these projects (an unlikely event, though not impossible), I'll be nicely set-up to begin rewriting Walk Upon High in 2014.

I’d also like to produce Book 5 of Cowry Catchers in fullcast audio this year, and I'll produce most of these short stories as solo readers. If I end up at home for more of the year, I might even record Hunters as a solo read, but that will depend on proximity to microphones. In addition, I hope to release all my novels in paper editions this year. We might not get through the whole list, but I have hopes.

Thank you so much to everyone who bought books, left reviews, hunted for typos, donated to Podiobooks, designed or drew or painted my characters or covers or maps. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their voices, their music, their sound effects. Thank you for entering contests, making fan art, making dolls! Thank you for coming to meet me at Balticon and Dragon Con and New Media Expo. Thank you for your time and your eyes and your ears. These stories are for you.

________________________

*I only know the story is that long because I just finished it.

**This will not be published under my name and I probably won’t tell you about it on this blog. Sorry!

Formatting Illustrated eBooks - an Update

It's been a year and a half since I wrote my post on how to format illustrated (or non-illustrated) eBooks. The post still gets frequent hits, as well as occasional questions on Facebook and Twitter. I'm still using this technique to lay out my own eBooks, although many other methods have come along in the last year. Some of them may be easier than what I’m doing. I am particularly interested in using scrivener to output eBook files and will probably start testing that soon. However, my old method still gives me clean, attractive eBooks without much hassle, which is all that matters.

 

I got a twitter question recently that I can't answer in 140 characters, so I'm going to answer it here. I’ve hear variations on this question before.

 

From @KMLaw - "just to understand it, that means photos between text but not a fully-layouted magazine style eBook? do you know that too?"

 

My answer - if you're saying what I think you're saying, it won't work. Here's what you need to do before you go any further. Get yourself several illustrated (or picture-rich) eBooks - children's books, cookbooks, illustrated fiction, photography books, how-to books, whatever. I suggest Amazon, but if you have other devices, use those. If it's Amazon, do the following:

 

--open each book on a black and white Kindle

--open them on a Kindle fire (a little one and a big one if possible)

--download the Kindle ap and open them on your phone

--download Kindle ap for desktop, and open them on your desktop computer

--download Kindle ap for iPad (anyone's iPad will do; just sign into your Amazon account), and open them on an iPad

--download Kindle ap for iPad mini, and open them there

--if possible find someone’s cheap tablet (Samsun, et al), and open the books there

--if possible (if the book is DRM-free), open it (side-load it) on a non-Amazon device with no available Amazon ap (a Nook or Kobo device, etc)

 

This won't cost you a thing, except whatever you pay for the books, and there are plenty of free eBooks out there, even illustrated. If you're a hardcore BN fan, you can do this exercise with Nook devices and Nook aps. Dido for Kobo. You can also get books from smashwords and open them in Kindle, Nook, or Kobo aps.

 

Notice the differences in the way that the books display on all these devices. Notice the differences in screen size, resolution, and the way that the text and pictures re-flow to fit the different screens. Try changing the font size and see what happens. You may get some duds that do not reflow - where you have to zoom in and out all the time. Notice how annoying this is. You may also find some that were formatted incorrectly, where there are lots of blank pages and weird spacing. Notice how irritating that is for a reader.

 

Understand that your readers will be reading your books on all of these devices and more. You *cannot* have a fixed-page layout. Your book will look like crap on most devices if you do that. Readers won’t even finish it, much less buy your next book.

 

PDFs are fixed-page layout. That's what is typically meant by "magazine style layout." They have images embedded beside text, text flowing around images, text and design elements attached to images, etc. PDFs are for laying out physical paper books. They will not reflow. A PDF will cram the same number of words and pictures into the same layout on every page, no matter what device is in use. PDFs make hideous eBooks.

 

For eBooks, you want fluid and simple. You want in-line, reflowable words and pictures with a minimum of extraneous code (for old devices to choke on). You can't foresee all the devices on which your readers will try to read your books. Remember that many people now use their smartphones as primary ereaders. Imagine a fixed-page layout on a smartphone! Zooming in and out and scrolling back and forth to read every word? No one wants to do that. That’s why we use epub and mobi files for eBooks. They will not allow you to dictate what lands on each page, although you can try. I suggest you don’t.

It is possible that, with all the new output methods available, something has come along recently which will allow you to layout an epub file that will look like a magazine on an iPad or Kindle Fire HD and then will reflow to in-line text and pictures for smaller devices. That would be great, but I have not heard of such a program or output method. Even if I did know of such a thing, I would be leery of it’s ability to perform on older devices. If you want universal read-ability, keep it simple.

Hey, Cowry Catchers fans! The fullcast audio of book 4 went live today on CowryCatchers.com If you're a fan of the series, I think you'll dig this. The feed is here.

Women Are Not From Venus

I enjoy to the Roundtable Podcast, although I’m currently way behind on my listening. Recently, I got to their interview with Tim Pratt, an author whose work I admire. Tim has a series of urban fantasy novels about sorcerer Marla Mason, and he was asked on the podcast how difficult it is to write a female character and whether he had any words of wisdom for other men wishing to write believable women.

This kind of question drives me crazy. I hear it a lot on interviews, and it always makes me shout pointlessly at my MP3 player (no offense to the Roundtable folks). The implication is that there’s some inherently female way of thinking and that it is so different from a man’s mindset that special training is required to navigate this foreign country. Usually, this question is directed at men who write women, but sometimes women (like me) who write a lot of male characters also get hit with it. Tim’s answer was superb. Spot-on. Absolutely perfect. He said, “You make sure they’re actual people. They want the same things as men - to succeed in their chosen field, to achieve objectives, or take care of their families.”

Women are not aliens, gentlemen. They are not from Venus or any other extra-terrestrial location. Perceived differences between men and women often arise from personality differences that the male author observes between himself and women in his life, which he then extrapolates to all women. These prejudices reinforce themselves in exactly the same way that racial and other sorts of prejudices do. A white guy sees a black guy with a messy yard, and he says to himself, “Black people are messy.” He sees a white guy with a messy yard, and he thinks, “Jim sure is messy.” He does not for a moment extrapolate Jim’s messiness to all white people. But in the case of the black guy, he extrapolates.

So, a man marries a women who likes to visit the restroom with an entourage...or who is particularly emotive...or who is often late, and he says to himself, “That’s women for you.” Each time he meets a similar woman, he attributes her behavior to her female-ness. Each time he meets a women who does not behave in this way, he attributes her difference to her individual personality. In this way, prejudices reinforce themselves.

Tim went on to explain that what authors need to think about when they write the opposite gender, is how society will treat that person in ways that society does not treat the author. Societal pressures on women and men are different and may be even more different in the world you are writing.

I think it’s pretty obvious in Cowry Catchers that Gerard comes from a privileged class. He is accustomed to an ease of movement through his society which is not possible for Lu...or Silveo...or certainly for Thess. It takes him a long time to fully grasp this fact. Most of the differences between Gerard and these other characters do not devolve from Lu’s femaleness, Silveo’s species/gayness, or Thess’s handicap. They devolve from the societally pressures on these characters and the behaviors and patterns of thinking those pressures produce. Silveo, for instance, has to be better at his job than any grishnard in order to keep that job. This is often true for minorities.

So, writer, if you are writing someone not of your gender, think about what societal pressures might be acting upon that character. Think about how *you* would respond to those pressures. Think about how someone of any gender with your characters’ personality would respond to those pressures. Write that. Don’t try to write “a woman.” Because generic woman does not exist.

The same is true for women trying to write men. However, women are often forced, from a young age, to empathize with male characters. Every one of my favorite characters as a little girl were male. They did the interesting things. Lots of little girls have that experience. In some ways, it’s sad, and in other ways, it stretches our empathy at an early age. We realize, quite young, that there’s no fundamental difference between boys and girls in stories. You can empathize with either. Little boys aren’t often required to perform this exercise. They don’t meet girl after girl after girl in stories with which they are expected to identify. Maybe this is the origin of the myth that girls are more empathetic. Maybe we are required to be.

I wasn’t going to write about this, because I don’t usually write about divisive topics on this blog (read my books for that! ;), but then I read an article in which a heterosexual man tried dressing in slightly girlie clothes for 3 days to see what kind of reaction he got from his progressive community. He was smart enough to try, not just one kind of girl clothing, but several kinds.

And, boy, was his experience eye-opening. It encapsulates my own deep ambivalence towards dresses and all that they represent. Go read it. Think about it. Particularly if you’re a man trying to write women.