E-Books are changing the way we read and the way novelists write.

Re-Blogged from The Guaridan
Written by Paul Mason

If you hand me the original paperback edition of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow I can, quickly and without too much scrabbling, find you the page where the hero loses the girl. My disappointment on his behalf has lingered physically on that page for the past 20 years. Likewise, in Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, there is a long section where a platoon of the Red Army defends “House 6/1”, establishing a temporary zone of political freedom there. For me, this freedom seems to live in that chunk of pages. If I look at the book end-on, I can see, roughly, where House 6/1 exists.

Yet with the coming of ebooks, the world of the physical book, read so many times that your imagination can “inhabit” individual pages, is dying. I’m not the only person in my circle who has stopped buying new books in anything other than digital form, and even the cherished books described above are now re-read, when I need to, on Kindle.

But what is the ebook doing to the way we read? And how, in turn, are the changes in the way millions of us read going to affect the way novelists write? This is not just a question for academics; you only have to look at people on a beach this summer to see how influential fiction remains, and how, if its narratives were to change radically, our self-conception might also change.

Read the rest at: The Guardian

Hope Book Cover Feedback

As children we were taught to never judge a book by its cover. Yet when a reader goes online, or into a bookstore in search of their next read, the first thing they look for is a cover that draws their eye and speaks to them on an emotional level. For nearly everything we buy, from our cell phones to our automobiles, appearance is one of the top five considerations that factors heavily into the buying decision. Beyond ensuring your cover does not look like an amateur's first attempt we have very little control over how the public will perceive our work. We can look at what's currently in the genre for our upcoming release and see what's selling well. But that is no guarantee as readers taste are subjective, and there is no magic formula out there to tell us what will sell, and what won't.

With that in mind I come before you today to ask a favor. I have a release coming soon and in addition to working on the editing I've also been putting together the cover. I'm looking for some solid, honest, feedback.

Original cover

What do you honestly think of this cover?

Give me your thoughts in the comments below and after Hope is released I will happily provide you with a free copy in the electronic format of your choice. Shoot me an email after you have commented to rschiver@gmail.com and when Hope is released later this year I'll send you a copy absolutely free, no strings attached.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to your feedback.

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I also posted this cover on Facebook and Goodreads, the feedback from all sources has been great, thahk you everyone.

I've updated the cover, what do you think?

Updated 8-10-2015

The latest version updated 8-11-2015

The latest version, updated 8-12-2015

Version 11, updated 8-13-2015

Change of direction here to better illustrate the story. Don't worry hte hope cover will still be used.

The finished cover. Thanks everyone for your honest feedback. It helped tremendously.

Fridays 5 with M.E. Tudor

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) I've gone through serious spells with writing from junior high into adult hood. Fifteen years ago I became serious enough to complete a book and try to sell it. I didn't get any takers so I posted on an online site for my genre. I developed some fans from that. Then, in 2010 I started writing a new young adult lesbian fiction romance. I finished it in 2012 and found a small publisher to publish it. I've been going full steam ever since.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) Editing. I hate editing. I have people who help me with editing but it is still my least favorite thing to do.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) I was elated for about a minute. The publisher had not properly formatted the book so the first round of print copies were messed up. I only had a handful of sales until it went digital and then it went crazy. I still have really good sales on that book despite there still being a lot of editorial problems. That experience is what prompted me to self-publish and I won't look back. I love having complete control of my work.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) For me, my characters are the most important part of the story. If you write characters that people fall in love with everything else will fall into place. I've read a lot of books that I can't tell you much about the plot, but I can tell you about the characters and how they effected me.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.)  My life is beyond insane. My partner and I both work full-time jobs, we're raising and homeschooling three of our nine grandchildren. Most mornings I try to get up between 5:30 and 6:30 so I'll have writing time before my 21 month old grandson gets up. Once he's up, I start cleaning and getting homework together for his 10 and 8 year old brother and sister. The most of the rest of the day is doing homework, going to my job as a librarian, and coming home after 8 in the evening. I usually work during my lunch break and for a few hours after I get home. I try to work 4 to 6 hours on my days off. Despite all the craziness in my life, I manage to get a lot of writing done.

The Myth of The Lazy Writer by Hugh Howey

Re-Blogged from Publishers Weekly.

The hardest part of getting a book published is the actual writing. All it takes to see this is the number of people who dream of publishing a book but never manage to hammer out a rough draft. I spent 20 years trying to write my first novel before I finally pulled it off. It’s not unusual for an aspiring writer to struggle for years and never produce a finished product to submit to agents or editors.

Once the hard part is done and a draft is written, there are two basic routes a writer can take. Much ink has been spilled over the past few years about the rise of self-publishing—even though the route predates Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin. To self-publish requires hiring cover artists, editors, and typesetters or learning to do these things on one’s own. The difficult task of emailing a cover artist to hire her services is often used to frighten authors away from self-publishing. That’s because there’s a myth that authors are lazy, and a myth that some authors merely write for a living. No such creature has ever existed.

The alternative to self-publishing is to sign over your work to a traditional press. It sources the cover artist, editor, and typesetter for you. In exchange, it takes most of the income. This is sold as a fair deal, especially since it is said that publishers support authors while they write their novels by providing a livable advance. This is yet another myth: authors produce their first works while working another job; they are not given a year’s salary because they have an idea.

Read the rest at Publishers Weekly