The human character has been ill-served by nature: we tend to consider matters carefully after the fact, not before.
-Quintus Curtius Rufus
How to Publish Stuff on iBooks, using Tablo…
I laid out the steps some weeks ago on my Ello page. If you like having your stuff iBooks, Tablo takes much of the work out for you. Here’s the basics:
Step 1 – Put Your Book on Tablo. You can write (or copy-paste) your work there with their Bookmaker software, which is intuitive and very easy, or you can upload a Word document. I’ve only done it the first way.
Step 2 – Publish. Having your book on Tablo, even available to read there, is separate from it being published to iBooks. When you click on your book, you will see three links at the top of the page: “Write,” to continue working on a book, “Publish on Tablo”, to allow it to be read on the web site for free, and “Sell on Bookstores,” which will send it to iBooks. You can have all, some or none of your book available on Tablo to read. You can select and deselect individual chapters. You can post chapters as you write them, to build a readership. Or you can skip this step entirely and go straight to:
Step 3 – Sell. Setting your book up for sale is all done on a single page. You will need to input the following:
- Title
- Subtitle
- Description
- Author Name (pseudonyms permitted)
- Language of Book
- BISAC Category (there’s a clickable drill-down to find yours, so don’t worry)
- Tags
- Pricing for US, UK, and Australia (there will be a suggested price point for each, but you can set them to be whatever you want)
- Paypal email (Yes, you need a PayPal account to play)
- Book Cover (Upload any high-res image)
Then just click the button and wait. This is the downside: you will wait.
I didn’t end up waiting as long as I thought I would, because as of a few days ago The Devil Left Him is up on iBooks. It has an alternate cover from the Amazon version but is otherwise the same. It’s also cheaper.
I’m going to share this because I already agree with it and that’s how blogging works…
Originally posted on charles french words reading and writing: Here are a few quotations about creating first drafts to inspire all of us to keep writing: (https://pixabay.com) “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” …
via Quotations on Writing First Drafts — charles french words reading and writing
Vlad the Impaler and Cue-ing Your Readers
Good Post at madgeniusclub about making sure your readers are getting the cues you’re giving them, and more importantly, not reading cues that you don’t intend to be there:
You need to be aware that if you’ve got a strong mystery plot, you should be putting in the cues for the red herrings and the real culprit and all the other little goodies mystery authors tease their readers with. Similarly, if your epic fantasy does not have a strong romance subplot, take the time to make sure you aren’t throwing romance cues at your readers. That will just make the more romance-oriented ones unhappy. It could well make the non-romance readers unhappy too, because these cues are deeply embedded in our culture.
This may raise the hackles of those who want to bust out or overturn the tropes or expectations of genre, but you can’t do those things unless you know what the tropes are and how they are used.
The author, Kate Paulk, is one I’ve read before. Her Impaler starts out as a historically-grounded Vlad II-as-a-Vampire story, and then goes someplace completely unexpected with it. It confounds your expectations in a good way. When I read it, I kept thinking the story could not possibly be going where it is, and I felt a little confused, but I kept reading. The characters were sufficiently developed, and sufficiently interesting, that I wanted to know what was next even as I found myself wondering why the trope I had expected was not arriving. Plus, a great closing line. If you like a good broody vampire prince tale, you should check it out (click the link to buy on Amazon).
Back to Work
I don’t just write and Dad (and Play Crusader Kings) all day, I also work for a living. And the end of summer means the resumption of the daily sweat to earn my bread. Which is fine, because it doesn’t put a halt to writing.
Specifically, it doesn’t put a halt to editing Last Tomorrow. I’m aiming for the end of this month as a release date. As I have for Void, which comes next.
And of course, The Sword, which will be drafted, hopefully by EOY. It’s going to be the next big thing after Void comes out, and the one I’m going to put the biggest push on.
In the meantime, here’s a perversely relevant historical argument I pose on Medium: Yes, the Civil War was About Slavery.
A lot of people seem to think otherwise, but they’re wrong. And I have the historical documentation to prove it. Plus, some rad Shakespeare quotes.
More posting will happen later.
