[stylist] Fantasy prompt

[Donna Hill]

Chris,
Thanks for your comments. I'm surprised I didn't catch the exclamation
marks. I usually have an aversion to them. I'll have to check that out. 

I'm running around like a mad woman with different things to do for a half
dozen different versions of the book. The Bookshare version's out and the
Kindle is ready to upload, once I'm satisfied with my 4000 character blurb.
I have to make some changes for Nook and Smashwords: I included URLs for
everyone who provided a recommendation quote, and one is for Jerry Whittle's
new novel Slingshot, which is on Amazon. Anyway, the other e-book publishers
are touchy about any links that lead to competitors. Jerry has it on Nook
now, so I can use that one, but the others don't want either of them.
Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have his own website, so I'll have to use
a link to an old article. 

You can edit the eBook files once they're uploaded -- I'm assuming it is not
accessible and that Rich will have to do it. What I ended up with from the
e-book formatting service (Fiction Works) is one MOBI file for Kindle, an
epub version which I could use for several, but will probably only use for
Nook and a .doc for Smashwords, which they convert into a bunch of other
formats including Blio, Sony and PDF.

I just got the first mock-up for the Create Space POD version on Friday,
which included the front matter, two full chapters and the beginning of the
third. I had to make a couple of changes. They have a whole series of steps
including a questionnaire, an opportunity to upload comments on formatting
preferences and a telephone conference. I took advantage of all of them and
my major emphasis was on keeping the page count to 340 . I had originally
formatted it myself, but decided not to proceed. I had the cover done by
that time, however, and the spine width was calculated for 331-340 pages. It
is highly inadvisable to do the cover first, but they assured me they could
work with that. Anyway, I gave them all of the settings I used which were
picked from their site, and. There was some wiggle room, but I specifically
warned them that they couldn't start the text of the first page of a chapter
as low on the page as they might like. 

So, they apparently just do what they do, and not only did they start it
really low, but they made the chapter titles 22 point. Apparently, they
don't think about things like how many lines that's going to take up. The
longest chapter title, which is visually obvious when you look at the table
of contents, would take up 4 lines in 22 point. Between the huge titles and
the first page of the chapters starting so low, they already have two more
pages than I had by the beginning of the third chapter -- there are 54
chapters, so you can see that this might become an issue. 

Anyway, I talked to them again and wrote everything up, so I'm hoping they
get it this time. The more pages they can make it, the more each copy costs
the writer, and I think it is reflected in the way they calculate royalties.
My hubby thinks that all of the questionnaires and such are simply to make
the writer feel important.

I'm wondering who else may  have my post in their spam folder. You're the
first one I've heard from at all. I had posted the lyrics to a song a few
weeks ago and only Barbara commented on that one .
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 10:26 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] Fantasy prompt

Donna,

Sorry I missed this when I was reading other prompt responses yesterday. For
some reason it landed in my spam folder.

This reads well, and you have me intrigued as to where the kids will go with
their cloud ship. Very clever. My only words of writing advice are to go
easy on the exclamation marks. Too many and they lose their impact.

Thanks for sharing, and I hope the publishing process is moving along well
for you.

chris
 


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