I came across Mary in the comments on a post on the Fiction Groupie blog asking if people would buy self published books. Some people said they would never look at them. Mary began her comment with - As a self-pubbed author who has never been traditionally published, I guess I'm one of those some of you would never buy. Then she went on to say that her book No Good Deed was doing quite well. I checked out the book and bought it (only $3.99 on Smashwords for the ebook – I can take a risk for that). From the reviews I read, I thought it might be a candidate for an M-Award. It was and I awarded her one last week because I found the book highly moving and memorable. Here’s the blurb. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances,Chicago photographer Mark Taylor finds himself in the incredulous position of being arrested as a homegrown terrorist and incarcerated as an enemy combatant. There's no rights, no trial--no way out. After reading it, I wanted to ask Mary some questions and I … [Read more...]
Choosing an ebook reader.
This is the second post in a series on ebooks and ereaders. The first of this series was on the pros and cons of ebooks. Now let’s assume that you’ve decided to buy an ebook reader. The first thing you notice is that there’s a lot of different ones, they do different things, take different files and are different sizes. So how do you choose? First you need to know some basics. E-ink is the format you want for the screen, because anything backlit is the same as reading on a computer, ie hard on your eyes. Most of them are e-ink, but some cheaper ones aren’t. Not all ebook files are useable on all ereaders. The main ones are mobi files (can only be read on a Kindle unless you know a secret -see more below) and epub (can’t be read on a kindle). PDF’s are accepted by most readers but they do strange things format wise in many of them, so epub is becoming the industry standard for non Kindle readers. But if PDFs aren’t security protected, they can be changed into epub using a free … [Read more...]
Links
Just a quicky to let you know that I've organised my links into convenient categories - writing links, author blogs, reviewers and supportive bloggers. The supportive bloggers are those who have helped get the word out about lethal Inheritance. … [Read more...]
The Pros and cons of ebooks
When I first heard about ebooks, I thought, ‘no, I’ll stick with paper and ink’. Like many readers, I couldn’t imagine snuggling up on the couch or in bed with a piece of electronic equipment. But now, I have an ebook reader and I do snuggle up with it. I also carry it in my handbag where the print sized copy just wouldn’t fit. Not only that, but I also buy a lot more books than I did before. What are the things we love about printed books? Books feel good to hold. Each one is a unique and tangible entity with a different weight, size, smell and texture. You can have them signed by the authors and look at their lovely covers. You can easily write notes on them ( in pencil of course) They show how much you love them by their dog ears and tatty covers. What’s the down side of print books? They cost quite a lot, fall apart, take up space ( do you ever have enough shelf space for your ever growing collection?), are heavy, ( have you tried traveling with a book or shifting house with … [Read more...]
How to make your Kindle ebooks readable on ereaders other than the Kindle.
Post updated 18.3.13 I bought an ebook from Amazon, read it on my PC, then decided to buy a sony ereader. But I wanted to read my Amazon purchased ebook again, and some I hadn't read yet, hence the beginning of a long web journey to find a way to change a Kindle file so I could read it on whatever device I wanted. Below is a step by step guide so you do't have to take the same long journey. The process is a lot simpler than when I wrote the original post, which is still below. I left it here in case there is anything helpful for there for any of you who get bugs. The new system also removed the DMR from Topaz files. Thanks to the people who made these tools available. Like me, they are completely against pirating and have said so on their sites. Here's my version of it. Note - the only reason anyone should be removing DMR on a Kindle book (or any other ebook) is so they can read a book they've purchased for one ereader on a different kind of ereader. Pirating is not cool - … [Read more...]
Rejection isn’t rare, but feedback with it is.
One of the things that annoy some writers is that rejections don’t come with any feedback on the story or novel being submitted. The reason given is that agents, editors (in the case of magazines) and publishers just don’t have time. I understand that completely, because to give responsible feedback takes a lot of thought as well as the time to write it properly. So when feedback does come, it’s greatly appreciated and very heart warming. It shows that someone has taken the time to nurture your writing. It’s only happened to me once, in this recent response from Aurealis Magazine (an Australian and New Zealand Sci fi/fantasy magazine). On the 4th May, I submitted a 6000 word story called ‘Butterfly’. The first 500 words of it are at the end of this post. (I won’t put it all up yet, because I’m still hoping to find a Magazine to publish it.) In italics below is the email I received from the editor. My comments are in ordinary type. 'Dear Tahlia, Thank you for submitting your story … [Read more...]
The query letter
How do you get an agent or a publisher? You write a query letter. Maybe it’s called that because you’re asking the question, ‘are you interested?’ You only get one shot at each agent and each publisher, and they’re very busy people. If your letter doesn’t grab them, they won’t read the rest of your submission. This is why the query letter is so important, and it’s why I rewrote mine maybe twenty times. The most important part of the query is the ‘blurb’ for the back cover of the book. The aim of it is to give an idea of what’s in the novel and make people want to read it, all in around 100- 150 words. Doing this was a wonderful exercise in clarifying the main thrust of the book, being succinct and choosing words carefully. Although seven agents and, so far, three publishers rejected my novel, one agent picked it up, so it can’t have been too bad. Also my agent, apart from rewriting my brief bio - I would never have thought of mentioning the masks - has used the guts of my query … [Read more...]
Searching for a publisher – the next step
My agent has sent an email proposal for my book to Macmillan Australia, Text publishing, Macmillan in the UK and Simon & Schuster and Walden Media in the USA. The news we want to hear is that one of them wants to read the ms, but there will inevitably be rejections. … [Read more...]
My guest post on ‘Great (book) Expectations’
Cathryn Isakson of http://novelexpectations.wordpress.com/ asked me to write a guest post on her blog site about finding resources on the web and it's up there now. Cath is an author and publicist from Melbourne and her blog has excellent posts for writers wanting to be published. There's a link to her site in my links box too. Here's a link to the article if you're interested. http://novelexpectations.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/a-guide-to-finding-writers-resources-on-the-web-a-guest-blog-by-tahlia-newland/ … [Read more...]
Hits and swims
We're up to 920 hits already. Well done. The first 1000 is in sight! After my clarification on swiming, my agent agreed with "'Swim's over. Time to get out,' Walnut said." … [Read more...]
