[stylist] A Writer's Wormhole: Novelist to Publisher in3EasyNervous Breakdowns

Donna Hill penatwork at epix.net
Mon Mar 25 21:48:11 UTC 2013 

Lynda,
Sorry for giving you a headache. I should have never delved into the
formatting and design issues, but I am hopelessly curious about whether
things can be done with screen readers, for one thing, and I couldn't stop
myself.

If you still have a relationship with that editor, that would be the way to
go. I haven't heard of the site you mentioned, but it sounds interesting.
Create Space will take the raw materials and do the same thing you had done
for your earlier book, but I think the cost for something with color
pictures and more than ten images is higher than what I'm paying.
Donna 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda Lambert
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 3:42 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] A Writer's Wormhole: Novelist to Publisher
in3EasyNervous Breakdowns

Oh, Donna, your experiences give me a headache!
I cannot even imagine doing this - you are amazing.

I was beginning to think of doing a book project that would go in tandem
with a major solo exhibition - in about five years.  The show would be a
retrospective, and I have thought of doing a chronological show catalogue -
photos of my work, with commentaries - over a 40 year period of my work.  I
saw one done by a friend, Fran Schantz, a painter. It was done by BLURB. com
and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this company. I did
visit that site and it looks promising for my purposes.  I loved the book
that my friend produced - a retrospective of his drawings and the art works,
with his writings about them. I loved the size of it most of all - it is 7
inches x 7 inches - such a beautiful size for showing art works - so
personal and the square format is exciting to me - very artsy. I know the
book was written by an art critic, not by my friend.

When my book, Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage was published by Kota' 
Press, I just sent them the pages of my poems, and pages of the drawings for
illustrations, and the editor there did all the work - I hold the copyright
to all my writings and art, and he holds the copyright to all the layout and
publishing of the book.
This book was a part of my tenure project for my promotion at the college -
a six year project that involved writing the book;  establishing and
supervision a national traveling art exhibition from coast to coast; and
writing my tenure manuscript - a three part tenure project. It was very
intensive - those 6 years - besides teaching full time, traveling a couple
times a year taking students on trips for work/study; and doing conferences
and publishing other works through my conference presentations and contacts.

Looking back on it, I am delighted to be RETIRED these days.

Lynda








----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna Hill" <penatwork at epix.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] A Writer's Wormhole: Novelist to Publisher in
3EasyNervous Breakdowns


> Jackie,
> I'm sorry to hear that my experiences are turning you off to 
> self-publishing. Publishers and agents who accept poetry are few and 
> far between, and many poets are going the self-publishing route. The 
> publishers are out there though, so just keept working on it.
>
> Your teacher is very wise. I wish I had stuck with Word 2003, but it 
> wasn't working right with my new computer. I'm still not sure what the 
> issue really was, but I switched to 2010.
> Donna
> One
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> Jacqueline Williams
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 12:35 PM
> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [stylist] A Writer's Wormhole: Novelist to Publisher in 3 
> EasyNervous Breakdowns
>
> Donna,
> I love your title. Your article is well-written. Unfortunately, it 
> cured me of wanting to self-publish. I admire you for pursuing that 
> road, for I think the knowledge you gained is invaluable. I thank you 
> for sharing it.
> When I am forced to get on my new computer with up-to-date software, I 
> will have a tremendous learning curve.
> My poetry teacher has an archaic program of "Microsoft Publisher," and 
> has done a beautiful anthology of our class work. She will not touch 
> the new versions, saying they are total confusion, even though she has 
> updated everything else.
> Jackie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Donna 
> Hill
> Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2013 4:09 PM
> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
> Subject: [stylist] A Writer's Wormhole: Novelist to Publisher in 3 
> EasyNervous Breakdowns
>
> Hi Friends,
>
> The following is the text of my latest post. It ends with the standard 
> text I am including about screen reader access to Word Press's 
> comments form.
> If
> you would like to help me, I'd really appreciate it if you went to the 
> accessible form (the link is at the bottom of the article) and left a 
> comment. If you have to copy and paste it, make sure you get it all -- 
> it ends with the number 3. Please feel free to comment here as well.
>
> Donna
>
>
>
> Block quote
>
> A Writer's Wormhole: from novelist to publisher in 3 Easy Nervous 
> Breakdowns
>
> by Donna W. Hill
>
> Published 3/23/13
>
> DonnaWHill.com/2013/03/23/writers-wormhole-novelist-to-publisher-3-eas
> y-nerv
> ous-breakdowns
>
>
>
> Graphic: Screech Owl in Wood Duck House by Rich Hill"
>
>
>
> Last week, a desperate quest for sanity compelled me to stand down 
> from my mind-numbing routine and ask "What on Earth has happened to 
> me?"  I was a writer. Somehow, however, I must have entered one of 
> those wormholes the physicists talk about. While it was a route to 
> another part of the universe where I need to go, it was a journey of 
> suffocating pressure.
>
>
>
> The Heart of Applebutter Hill: The Writing Process
>
>
>
> For years, I lived in Applebutter Hill, a fictional land with 
> portholes into mythical worlds where two shy teenagers travel in a 
> camouflaged airship dubbed the Cloud Scooper. Classrooms transform 
> into realistic representations of places like Westminster Abbey, and a 
> grumpy acorn inspires a song with the tag line, "Mighty oak trees are 
> nothing but little nuts who stood their ground." This world is not 
> entirely of my own making.
> It is inhabited by the spirits of loved ones, friends and even enemies.
>
>
>
> My theory of writing is informed by my identity as a journalist. Get 
> the story and write it up; everything beyond the inquiry stage is 
> editing. For fiction, inquiry occurs in the imagination.
>
>
>
> Editing a Novel
>
>
>
> Once I had it down, I picked and fussed. I combed through the novel 
> for errors, phrases that could be tightened up, things that weren't 
> clear. I tried to make the dialog more realistic, the narrative 
> crisper. I rearranged paragraphs, sentences and even single words, in 
> a quest to present information in the perfect order for building and 
> sustaining suspense.
>
>
>
> I invited others to read my novel and give feedback. Fortunately, I 
> have people in my life who are willing to say something other than, 
> "Yeah, it's great. I liked it." I agonized over their comments, took 
> their advice and made changes. Ultimately, the manuscript cowered in 
> fear that I would move a comma, question an adjective or turn 
> something else into a contraction just to reduce the word count.
>
>
>
> Bringing a Book from Manuscript to Publication
>
>
>
> If I was distracted, forgetful or uninvolved in the everyday details 
> of life while writing and editing, it was nothing compared with the 
> next stage.
> The
> novel was done. Though I would love to continue writing, to delve into 
> my notes on a sequel or work on something else entirely, I restrained
myself.
> Nowadays, I am simply shepherding the work of my life through the 
> publication process.
>
>
>
> At first, it wasn't complicated. I researched agents, sent out queries 
> and tried not to despair of the emptiness that was my In Box. But, the 
> clock was ticking and my patience was wearing thin. I decided to 
> self-publish.
>
>
>
> What company should I go with? Create Space or Lulu, Smashwords or 
> Book Tango? What about the others? I made my choices (Create Space for 
> print and Kindle; Smashwords for the other eBook options). Did I 
> choose wisely? I have no idea. I suspect that any of the many options 
> would be workable. The wildcard is the author's willingness and 
> ability to press on with promotions.
>
>
>
> Choices, Choices, Choices!
>
>
>
> Create Space has several options for every aspect of the process. For 
> the interior design, for instance, you can upload a print-ready PDF or 
> use their online Interior Reviewer, which does the conversion for you 
> - both are free.
> The trick is that you need to, at the very least, make a properly 
> formatted .doc, .docx or .rtf.
>
>
>
> You can also pay them $379 to design the interior for you. I think I 
> truly entered the wormhole, when I realized that Create Space's 
> discounts on promo copies don't kick in until you order 5,000. Yeah, 
> that's "five thousand."
> The savings on multiple copies is on shipping only. $379 buys a lot of 
> promotional copies.
>
>
>
> The Novel's Interior Design
>
>
>
> I decided to design my novel's interior myself. Are you raising an 
> eyebrow?
> Well, get the other one up there; it's a crazier idea than it seems.
>
>
>
> Formatting your book starts with choosing a trim size. 6" x 9" is the 
> most popular and the one I chose. Create Space provides guidelines on 
> margins and gutters, and a trip around Word's Page Set-up dialog turns 
> your manuscript into something resembling a book.
>
>
>
> Then there's Styles. If you're the average Word user, just throw 
> everything you think you know about formatting out the window; it may 
> look great for printing a manuscript, but that's not how it's done. 
> The pros use Styles, not local formatting. A Style is a collection of 
> choices about font and paragraph attributes and parameters (such as 
> what Style the following paragraph should be) bundled together and 
> given a name.
>
>
>
> Time for more reading. Being the prudent sort, I practiced on new 
> documents.
> I congratulated myself on how quickly I was getting the hang of it. 
> Somehow,
> however, I lost a measure of cynicism and forgot everything I had come 
> to expect from Microsoft. I was, therefore, shocked to learn that Word 
> 2010 doesn't automatically make these new Styles available to other
documents.
> They need to be imported. Also, unlike Word 2007, the Developer Tab is 
> not on the ribbon.
>
>
>
> Book Design: Formatting Problems & Headaches
>
>
>
> The problems really started when I tried to import Styles. Since I am 
> blind, I use text-to-speech software to access the computer and the 
> internet.
> Wonderful as this is, it has some drawbacks. Chief among them is that 
> software and website developers are a baffling combination of 
> uninformed and uninterested, when it comes to adding the 1s and 0s 
> that allow screen readers to communicate with their products.
>
>
>
> Running up against some of these stumbling blocks sent me over the 
> edge. I was so close! While hovering over my computer in a state of 
> paralysis, I realized what I should have known all along - I am not, 
> nor do I want to be a professional book designer. My novel deserves 
> better. I conceded defeat.
> I
> soothed my ego by assuring myself that I had - in over a hundred hours 
> that I will never get back - at least learned enough about the topic 
> to be somewhat conversant in it. I then threw in the towel, ran up a 
> white flag and spent $397.
>
>
>
> Accessibility Issues for People Using Screen Readers
>
>
>
> Screen reader users, there are significant issues with Word Press's 
> "Leave a Reply" form - which is labeled on this site "So, What Do You 
> Think?" Even if you access the edit fields and fill them out, the 
> "Submit" button doesn't work most of the time. I have advised Word 
> Press of this issue.
>
>
>
> Meanwhile, here's a "temporary" solution. Every page and post has a 
> link labeled "Accessible Comment Form for Screen Reader Users." It is 
> accessible, but does not link directly to the automated comments 
> system. It will be sent to me, however, and I will forward it to Word 
> Press to post on your behalf.
> The URL is:
>
> donnawhill.com/accessible-comment-form-for-screen-reader-users-3
>
> Block quote end
>
>
>
>
> -- The Heart of Applebutter Hill, a novel on a mission:
> DonnaWHill.com
>
> Read Donna's articles on Suite 101:
> http://suite101 <http://suite101.com/donna-w-hill> .com/donna-w-hill
>
> Connect with Donna on
> Twitter:
> www.twitter.com/dewhill
> LinkedIn:
> www.linkedin.com/in/dwh99
> FaceBook:
> www.facebook.com/donna.w.hill
>
> Hear clips from "The Last Straw" at:
> cdbaby.com/cd/donnahill
>
> Apple I-Tunes
> phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=259244
> 374
>
>
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