Tag: editing

Wanna alpha read BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES, VOL. 2?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized15 Comments

I am mostly using humans who I know in the real world, and one blog-reserved slot is filled, but I’m looking for a couple more.  If your reading schedule isn’t already packed full for the next month or so and you don’t mind providing me with some feedback, either drop me a comment or an email and let me know.  Thanks!

EDIT:  I think I have enough people now, so I’m no longer looking for more alphas.  Unless you know me well enough that you read this and think “Well, he doesn’t mean me,” in which case I probably do actually but drop me an email anyway.  Thanks, everyone!

Regarding yesterday’s posts

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Two addenda and/or corrections, depending on how you feel about it:

  • FIRST, that my issue with Bank of America was solved without rancor or drama; they just moved the payment.  Done.
  • SECOND, that along with the new cover of Along Came A Wolf apparently came a copy-edit, as the concerns that I had about occasional grammar issues in my (older) version of the ebook were not immediately apparent in the print edition that arrived yesterday.  So you can erase that concern, and buy to your heart’s content.  Whee!

On what “done” means, and other BA Vol. 2 musings

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing10 Comments

bacover3dI’m actually going to start this off with the part where I ask for advice, because I’m not sure what the right thing to do here is, and I’m curious about what everyone might think:

  • FACT: At the moment, Benevolence Archives, Vol. 1 is never going to see print as a stand-alone book.  With a word count in the 30K range, it’s simply too short to make it happen at a reasonable price point.  It is possible that if I hit it big it’ll appear in some sort of super-special deluxe hardcover edition, but for now? No.
  • FACT: This does not change the fact that I want BA 1 to see print sooner or later.
  • FACT: Benevolence Archives, Volume 2 will be available both digitally and in print.  I am hoping for both to be available on the same date, but don’t hold your breath.  The ebook will definitely come first if the print version can’t be pulled together in time.
  • FACT: Not everyone who reads BA 2 will have read BA 1, but many people will already have downloaded some version of the book.
  • FACT: A lot of the people who downloaded BA 1 did it for free.

All that said:

  • OPTION ONE: Do a print edition of Benevolence Archives, Volume 2 as an omnibus, including both the short stories in BA 1 and the BA 2 novel.  This will put the total word count in the 100K+ range.
  • OPTION TWO: Do two new print editions, one of BA 2 as a stand-alone, and an entire different book as an omnibus edition.

If I go the first route, I’ll have no choice but to charge a bit more for it.  Therefore I run the risk of people being upset about possibly being charged twice for the same material.  If I go the second route, there’s a good chance of confusion about exactly what people are buying setting in, and I’ll also have to order a second cover.

Right now, I’m leaning toward option one– of the only print edition of either title containing both of them.  Future BA plans include the next book being another short story collection, so if I keep the pattern of short stories-novel-short stories-novel, I can just keep doing a print edition every other release.  Unless people think this is insane.

Current release target: April.  Late March is possible but I want some breathing room and right now that’s two months off.  So I’m saying mid-April for now.

At the moment, the book is in my wife’s hands, and she’s doing the pre-alpha read.  I will make some adjustments based on her read through and then I will post a call for alpha readers here.  Alpha readers will be provided with a copy of the book as it stands at that time and some detailed instructions from me on what I’m looking for.  Y’all will have about a month to get notes back to me.

If you’re interested in being an alpha reader, let me know in comments.  This isn’t the “official” call– that’ll be a week or two away, and some of my alphas are going to be people I know in the real world– but it’s good to have an idea about who is interested in advance.  My only rule is you have to be around here or Twitter often enough that I know who you are.  You do not have to have read BA 1, although I’m assuming most folks who are interested will.  Alphas will be compensated with an eventual free copy of the final version of the book.  And with my eternal love and gratitude.  But good luck spending that.

It has only just occurred to me that now that Skylights is in print I have actual physical merchandise that, in some universe, I might actually attempt to sell to people in a one-on-one, retail fashion.  I gave a copy to the cover artist the other day, and the first words out of his mouth were to ask if he could order a bunch of copies for the next time he’s at C2E2.  I did not immediately bring up the idea of doing a signing in his store, which is a thought so terrifying as to induce actual physical paralysis.

I probably ought to, though.  While I’m at it, I probably ought to see if any local bookstores are interested in such things.

That seriously scares the hell out of me.

A query for the readers and the writers

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing12 Comments

bacover3dThe first draft of the next, annoyingly-still-untitled Benevolence Archives book is very nearly done.  At that point, hopefully by the end of the month, there will be a call for alpha readers.

However.

I am aware at the moment that there are problems with the manuscript.  Bits I’m not happy with.  And another big section that I think it needs that I need to insert but that isn’t going to make it into the first draft.  Now, if I choose to do this before I can declare the first draft Done, it’s obviously going to take a while longer, and I may as well call the first draft the First Draft so that I can be done with it and then correct the issues that I already know about in Draft the Second.

Here’s the question:  Do I

  • Go ahead and send the first draft to alpha readers, knowing that I feel there are issues with the manuscript, mostly to see if the ARs note the same issues that I do?
  • Or wait until *I’m* happy with it, which in theory could take a decent chunk of time longer, before I let anyone else’s mitts on it?

I may deliberately hold the Big Section back from alphas, if only so that they have something definitely new to look at when the book launches.

Theories?  Answers?  Other options I’m overlooking?  Let’s yammer.

Because why would I think that would work?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing6 Comments

I have this idea that I want Skylights available in print in the next couple of weeks, so that theoretically people can order it for a Christmas present, right?  So I worked on that for a bit last night.  This involved 1) adding text to the cover image, 2) saving the cover image, 3) making a few minor error corrections in the interior text itself (dammit!) and then reformatting that for print.

The following has happened, all within about an hour and a half or so:

  • The program I used to generate the ebook cover has “upgraded” to a new version, and the new version no longer allows you to change the font on text.  This is not a joke.  That’s actually true.  After spending far too much time trying to figure out what the hell I did to create the cover and giving up, I found a whole thread on the internet full of people saying variations of “Why the fuck would you even DO that?”  This means that I can’t reproduce the digital cover properly on the ebook cover, and also means that I need to learn a new program.  So I find a new program and figure it out.  I get the cover looking more or less like I want it to (the word “Skylights” on the cover is actually vertically stretched a little bit and no free program I can find will let me do that) and save it as a .jpeg and a .pdf.
  • The saved version has, for no clear reason at all, my name on the cover at a weird angle and has completely reformatted the text that will go on the back cover, and it looks nothing like the document I saved.  I try to re-open it in the program I was working on it in and it’s been saved as a flat image, so I can’t fiddle with it anymore.
  • So, okay, worry about that later.  I download the Word template that CreateSpace says I can use for my interior text.  It suggests simply copying and pasting.  I do so.  It does not surprise me one bit to discover that this does not work at all and not only changes margins and page sizes as I expected but also removes every carriage return and tab in the document, randomly right-justifies every subheading and chapter title, and does things I can’t even describe to my title page.
  • Okay, fine, I’ll fiddle with the page size and such on my original document.  In the process of just fiddling with the margins, which is a simple matter of going to Format –> Document and changing a couple of numbers, the entire document reverses polarity so that the text is now going up-and-down on the page.  This sounds impossible, or like I’m a complete idiot with computers.  I am not a complete idiot with computers; Word just sucks that badly.

So, yeah.  Fuckit.  Found a new way for the weekend to suck!

Question for the writerfolk among us

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing13 Comments

Anybody doing NaNoWriMo this year?  Or do y’all kind of feel like you’ve outgrown it?  I’m not, but because I know I won’t pull it off this year, plus BA 8 doesn’t have 50K more words in it.  I did it twice successfully; I figure that’s good enough.

More BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES musings, and an excerpt!

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing5 Comments

Guys, this book is being weird.  This is the third novel I’ve written, right?  Which, I know, doesn’t make me anywhere near an expert on how these things generally go but I’m not exactly a complete novice.  But I’ve never written anything like this story before, where every four or five thousand words I get ahead means I need to double back and hit “reset” on most of the last ten.  I’m writing the book in circles, and every couple of big scenes in the “now” part of the book has resulted in me going back and either rewriting or adding stuff earlier in the book.  It’s growing from the *middle*.  My books don’t usually do that.

I’m not complaining, mind you; I’m just kind of fascinated at how the process is working on this one, and how damn stubborn the book is being in refusing to come out the way I initially intended it to.

For example, after the jump you’ll find the first little bit of the book, at least as it stands now.  Why “as it stands now”?  Because this is the third beginning of the book.  The other two beginnings have been shoved to other parts of the book.  🙂

Standard first-draft caveats and all that, but here’s your first little look at Benevolence Archives 8, also known as THE TITLELESS.

Continue reading “More BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES musings, and an excerpt!” →

More thinking out loud

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing5 Comments

editingredpenToday’s gonna end up being an editing day; it’s going to have to be.  I spent all day Monday on the Baen entry (which, incidentally, I think I’m really proud of, and thanks very much to Ronovan, Kraftycatcreations, L. S. Engler, shrtstry, and ebthompson93, all of whom provided some suggestions and advice on short notice) and didn’t get anything remotely useful done yesterday, so right now I’m really behind on word count and about to get much worse.  

Here’s the thing, though:  at some point when I wasn’t looking this story got a lot bigger than I think I originally wanted it to.  To continue the Star Wars metaphor that’s loosely tied the whole series together I’ve found myself writing Return of the Jedi when what I wanted was the first half or so of A New Hope, maybe ending when they escape the Death Star.  I’m not blowing up the damn Death Star yet.  I don’t even think these guys are the guys who take that job.

(No, that’s not a hint that I’m planning on killing somebody.  I don’t even know who my Obi-Wan Kenobi is right now.)

I kept the Benevolence in deep background in the novella.  (Which you should buy and read, dammit.)  There’s no way to keep that going in a novel-length manuscript; the books are called The Benevolence Archives for a reason and the Benevolence needs to be a part of the novel.  But I seem to have tossed myself into a place where I’m going from these guys being this looming threat in the background straight into my heroes standing alone against the might of the evil empire territory and that’s really not where I wanted this story to go, so I need to either figure out a way to roll with it or pull the entire thing back and reconceptualize a little bit.

(I keep reminding myself first drafts are allowed to suck.)

Also, my habit of writing by planting myself in front of a computer and just, y’know, going is kicking me in the ass here.  I’ve already introduced at least one twist and possibly two that I have absolutely no idea what to do with and I think before I proceed much further I probably need to know what’s actually going on with them.  The target length for the manuscript is 75000 words; I’ll be around 20000 by the end of the day which is just over a quarter of the length, which means that the central conflict really ought to be clear by this point and I feel like it’s probably not.

So, yeah: today is going to be spent editing, and at the drawing board, scribbling ideas and making myself plan.  I like what I’ve got, don’t get me wrong; I just need to pound it into more of a shape before I start hanging other things on it.

Or something.  I’m not good with metalworking metaphors.