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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Yeah I had no idea it was a part two. Can it be read stand alone? Yes, absolutely. There's some backup information but I try to keep it to a minimum. I'm not a fan of reading 20 pages of flashbacks so I figure my readers aren't either. I had a different editor for the 2nd book and she was very good about pointing out things that she had no clue about. Thanks for the blurb critique guys, I'll start distilling down to the good stuff. Fake edit quote:A routine sentry mission discovers a human colony where only bones remain, but the hostiles are nowhere to be found. Yooper fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jun 6, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 21:22
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I really really like that second blurb, can you work "19th ACR" back into it? Maybe at the end there, "Sent on an impossible mission with no support, the 19th ACR strikes out alone." Also, where you have "Their armor is the only thing that can stand up to the Emflife tanks" I feel that's a great place to put "Their untested armor".
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Jun 6, 2015 22:23
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Excellent! Thanks again guys. I noticed a new trend in my blurb studies. Lots of authors are adding a few snippets to the start of the blurb and I wondered why. Then I was on a different PC and suddenly the Amazon product page looked different. A bit of A/B testing methinks. This is how it normally looked to me, notice the first three lines of the blurb, way down below the cover, pricing, etc.  And this is how it looked on a different PC.  Instead of scrolling down to read the blurb, whammo, it's right in your face. Literally the first line of your blurb is all they get to read unless they click for more. So man, you better have a great first line, or do the whole ... thing. I think my opening line is good enough to not do the fragment opener, but I can see the strength in it.
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Jun 6, 2015 22:55
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I liked that second blurb much more. The first might get the book into my maybe pile, on a good day. This one is much more interesting to me as a reader who hasn't heard of the series before. The only points I can pick out now are; "the defending troops on the desert planet..." phrasing seems off to me. Maybe im misunderstanding but either drop the first 'the' or change the 'on' to 'of' or 'from'? The second is the insectoid Kadan guys flooding the planet with technology. The way it reads currently it could easily mean flooded in the way china is flooding the us with smartphones. Im assuming your insectoids are a bit more hostile? Are they assisted by this technology? Are they spreading it out because thats part of some plan? Are the ancient guys involved or is their tech just being used? Its a bit unclear. Lastly, and this is something that might make more sense in the internal logic of your story but you've created a nice big existential threat. Yet the human response is this bunch of convicts. That made me go huh? But not in an entirely bad way. Anyway much better!
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Jun 7, 2015 09:58
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I've re-learned an important lesson this week. Never half-rear end anything.
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Jun 8, 2015 04:24
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Crap, I thought I was doing a really good job of keeping my writing simple but interesting, but the rough draft still popped a flesch-kincaid of 10.6.
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Jun 8, 2015 05:45
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Embarrassing confession: I didn't know that was a thing. I figured I should be rating pretty low because I'm always faaaar more flowery and 'literary' than I should be, using big words because I don't have the energy or self-discipline to write at a more accessible level, but I just ran my last draft through it and got 74.7 with an 8.0 grade level. 8% of my sentences are passive though  In Microsoft Word 2013 here's how you use it: quote:Click the File tab, and then click Options. edit: Microsoft Word stats are kind of interesting. I have 4.5 sentences per paragraph and an average of 21.1 words per sentence. I wonder if there's a program that will analyse a document and highlight each sentence or clause with a colour whose severity shifts according to length, like a temperature graph. You'd almost be able to track pacing visually Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jun 8, 2015 |
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Jun 8, 2015 10:03
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There's an OpenOffice / LibreOffice plugin that does pretty much that called Slick Write: http://www.slickwrite.com/
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Jun 8, 2015 10:26
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My newest book has been delayed for more than two months because of the artist I commissioned for the cover running into problems in their personal life. Random acts of God have been the major thing loving up my ability to produce for the past year, it's not fair 
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Jun 8, 2015 15:12
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One monkey don't stop the show.
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Jun 8, 2015 15:18
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Mr. Belding posted:One monkey don't stop the show. Oh, sure, it's not like I'm being unproductive. I've been busy writing my next book almost the whole time, apart from a week or so at the beginning when I was doing the finishing pass on editing for the completed work. Just call it annoyance that ever since I started trying to write for a living, the world has dumped some serious poo poo on my doorstep with alarming regularity.
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Jun 8, 2015 16:01
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Fuego Fish posted:My newest book has been delayed for more than two months because of the artist I commissioned for the cover running into problems in their personal life. Random acts of God have been the major thing loving up my ability to produce for the past year, it's not fair cancel the artist and get a new one. 2 months is unacceptable.
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Jun 8, 2015 16:38
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Malloreon posted:cancel the artist and get a new one. 2 months is unacceptable. Well, the first month wasn't much of an issue. They had to finish up a prior commitment before they could start on my work, and I was fine with waiting because of the editing that needed to get done, and eventually I got the preliminary sketches and was very happy with how they looked. We discussed some more, then they said they were on the final stages of the piece, and that was literally the last email I got from them. I'd be happy with just getting a "yes, hello, still alive" from them, if only to know they haven't been hit by a bus or something. The thing which honestly baffles me is that I haven't even paid them yet. No downpayment, no deposit, not so much as a dime. So there's no way I'm the one getting scammed or duped here. Really I'm just genuinely concerned that something terrible has happened and I don't know about it. Hoping that tomorrow morning I get an email with the finished piece and a small apology for the delay, but I am still looking around at alternative artists in the mean time.
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Jun 8, 2015 17:01
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Bobby Deluxe posted:There's an OpenOffice / LibreOffice plugin that does pretty much that called Slick Write: Hemingway is also pretty good - it counts up your adverbs, passive voice uses etc. then colour codes them.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:29
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Fuego Fish posted:Well, the first month wasn't much of an issue. They had to finish up a prior commitment before they could start on my work, and I was fine with waiting because of the editing that needed to get done, and eventually I got the preliminary sketches and was very happy with how they looked. We discussed some more, then they said they were on the final stages of the piece, and that was literally the last email I got from them. I'd be happy with just getting a "yes, hello, still alive" from them, if only to know they haven't been hit by a bus or something. I'm amazed that you've been this patient instead of just dropping them and buying a cover elsewhere.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:41
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Pinky Artichoke posted:I'm amazed that you've been this patient instead of just dropping them and buying a cover elsewhere. I'm naturally very patient, and it's not like I'm going to lose sales like this. My book's gonna sell the same amount whether it's published now and six months from now, honestly. Plus the artist's work is very good, and they've shown me that they have a really good understanding of not only what I want from the cover, but also what the story is about. I took one look at their sketches and thought, "this is the exact cover that I want." Which means it's hard for me to just go "welp, not working out" and cut ties, especially since the price they quoted me was really good. Like, the kind where you honestly want to bump it up a little because it'd otherwise seem like you're ripping them off. If they sent me an email that said "sorry, can't do it" it'd be easier, but the absolute radio silence is really making it hard for me to make a decision.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:01
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I don't see how it would be a problem to ask for a status update by the end of the week. no need to be an rear end in a top hat about it, just telling them that you'd like to know where you stand. Because if they've really been hit by a bus waiting won't help.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:13
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Fuego Fish posted:I'm naturally very patient, and it's not like I'm going to lose sales like this. My book's gonna sell the same amount whether it's published now and six months from now, honestly. Plus the artist's work is very good, and they've shown me that they have a really good understanding of not only what I want from the cover, but also what the story is about. I took one look at their sketches and thought, "this is the exact cover that I want." I had this happen with two different editors. I wrote a nice email asking for an update, nothing, then a week later I fired them. Their incompetence at even giving you a basic update is costing you (potentially) thousands of dollars. For me the not knowing was the worst part.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:47
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For me it would be the grave doubt about the editing abilities of someone who can't compose a simple mail within a reasonable timeframe.
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Jun 8, 2015 22:23
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I'm like 80 cents away from my first $20 day...but I only have five minutes left before the borrows stop recording!!! edit: boom, got it! 
angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:55
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angel opportunity posted:I'm like 80 cents away from my first $20 day...but I only have five minutes left before the borrows stop recording!!! congrats dude!
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Jun 9, 2015 02:30
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Congrats indeed! I think I've only made about that much this whole past year... although I did accidentally classify my book under "children's fiction" for half that time, stupid Amazon not making that clear.
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Jun 9, 2015 02:34
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angel opportunity posted:I'm like 80 cents away from my first $20 day...but I only have five minutes left before the borrows stop recording!!! Well done!
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Jun 9, 2015 03:23
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Fuego Fish posted:Congrats indeed! I think I've only made about that much this whole past year... although I did accidentally classify my book under "children's fiction" for half that time, stupid Amazon not making that clear. The young adult category is called Juvenile Fiction in KDP I think.
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Jun 9, 2015 03:32
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I just integrated all my websites into one and migrated to SquareSpace. The blog is probably still a bit rough (it was imported from wordpress), but I'd love any feedback you might have (it is now also my author website). https://george-cotronis.squarespace.com
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Jun 9, 2015 06:52
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ravenkult posted:I just integrated all my websites into one and migrated to SquareSpace. Looks good to me. Nice and straightforward, with plenty to impress straight up.
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Jun 9, 2015 11:43
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 I think something's wrong with the layout for mobile (android using firefox if it helps)
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Jun 9, 2015 12:07
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haha, jesus! Thanks. I'll see if I can fix it. And thanks Ghostwoods.
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Jun 9, 2015 12:12
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I think it looks pretty good. Clean and crisp, gotta like an artist website that's about the art, and not the artistic layout that takes 15 minutes for the browser to understand.
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Jun 9, 2015 12:36
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Yooper posted:I think it looks pretty good. Clean and crisp, gotta like an artist website that's about the art, and not the artistic layout that takes 15 minutes for the browser to understand. Artist (and probably any creative's) portfolio 101: First thing they see has to be your work, as elegantly but simply as you can.
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Jun 9, 2015 12:51
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EngineerSean posted:The young adult category is called Juvenile Fiction in KDP I think. Yeah, that's all set correctly now, but when I was doing the information for my book (blurb, etc.) there was a section for suggested ages so I thought "well I'd say 12 and up, it's pretty kid-friendly" and so I put minimum age 12, maximum age 18+, and that got it classified as "children's fiction" which, I think, means it doesn't show up in the regular fiction section. It might account for the very slow sales rate early on, but either way I'm never making that mistake again.
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Jun 9, 2015 13:25
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thousandcranes posted:
Obviously it's an artistic statement. What the publishing industry? What is a professional? If we're all one is not George Cotronis the industry and is not the industry George Cotronis? If you hire George Cotronis are you not a part of all three? Also the cover on the bottom right is badass, and that guy is a futuristic Russian cyborg PUA named Mikhail Steelcock.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:08
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Whew! Amazon just price-matched my book that's scheduled for the free BookBub promo. I was worried it wouldn't happen on time and that I'd have to run the promo for just BN, iTunes and Kobo. OK, now I can relax a bit.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:10
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Can someone give me some tips on balancing writing with a 9-5? Most days by the time I get home around 6, cook and eat dinner with my fiance and do some minor household chores it's about 8-ish before I'm able to settle into getting some words down. I've been finding it difficult to get the creative juices flowing after the typical monotony of the day and with limited time to write really want to maximize my productivity. My goal is to get a series arc of 3 short (~10kish words each) super-romance books published and see how it does, following all the advice in this thread as closely as I can. How do you all find the time/distraction-free environment while working your day job/when you used to work your day job?
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Jun 9, 2015 20:28
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I work 8-5 and get home around 5:30 and am married. Before I had actually self-published anything, it took me a full month to write a 10k-word short. As soon as I saw the first dollar come in, I suddenly realized this works and I thus valued my time a lot more than before. I started to do 10k per week for the first month. I usually wrote about two hours per night and more on weekends. When I started my new pen name and saw that it made more money, I started writing closer to four hours per weekday. As soon as my wife saw money coming in and realized this was profitable, it made it a lot easier to say something like, "I'm shutting the door and writing until I finish this story." Last night I got home and wrote four 45 minutes while my wife cooked, we ate for 30 minutes together, then I wrote from like 7pm until midnight, with short breaks in between bursts of uninterrupted writing. When I get tired or feel like blowing it off, I look on OTHER FORUMS and metaphorically jerk off to people's income charts to give me a kick in the rear end. I also have an accountability thread on some other forum, and I want to have impressive rather than lackluster update posts. Here is a guy's sales chart who said, "Publishing every day is paying off," (just with shorts, blue lines are borrows, red lines are sales):  I looked at that chart yesterday and wrote like 1.5k words during my lunch break, then finished the story last night and published at like 1:00 am. My goal is to hit $5k/month as fast as I possibly can, sacrificing free time and fun while I do it, because once I've made 5k three months in a row, I will quit my job. Once I quit my job I can do this writing thing during the hours of my day job, and then do whatever I want after 5pm, but have lots of money rather than very little like I have now.
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Jun 9, 2015 20:47
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angel opportunity posted:I work 8-5 and get home around 5:30 and am married. Thanks so much for this. I think where I'm getting ahead of myself is thinking about publishing before I've even written anything and get sidetracked with daydreaming about the big hit (which I realize is extremely difficult). I think I'm going to start with some incremental word goals and gradually ramp up so it doesn't seem like an insurmountable challenge. 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, 5000. I figure if I could write 2000 words a day I could have at least the skeleton of a short ready to go every week, pending cover work, editing and publishing. I normally write about 1000 words every so often for a sports publication and that doesn't seem so bad, but obviously writing player evaluations, game recaps and editorials are...uh...quite a bit different than writing your average super-romance. Shout-out to Moana for helping me get started initially as well. 
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Jun 9, 2015 21:47
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Jiminy Christmas. The book went free today and I've sold over 200 copies; that's with no promotion beyond twitter, my blog, and my FB page. Very intrigued to see what happens on Bub day.
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Jun 10, 2015 00:14
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For those of you who do romance shorts, what do people actually enjoy reading in terms of story balance? I see how you can tell a satisfying love story in 100-150 pages, and even in 50-75, but when I see authors who do very well for themselves publishing 10-30k romance stories, I just can't figure out how you manage to balance meeting, taking each others' measure, hitting a roadbump or two, and finally resolving into a happy ending without each point in the arc feeling rushed and unsatisfying.
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Jun 10, 2015 02:12
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Omi no Kami posted:For those of you who do romance shorts, what do people actually enjoy reading in terms of story balance? I see how you can tell a satisfying love story in 100-150 pages, and even in 50-75, but when I see authors who do very well for themselves publishing 10-30k romance stories, I just can't figure out how you manage to balance meeting, taking each others' measure, hitting a roadbump or two, and finally resolving into a happy ending without each point in the arc feeling rushed and unsatisfying. At 10kk and if it contains a sex scene, its erotica classed as romance. If you have a serial, youbcan have that kind of length. I Ihate to recommend it too much but HM Wards Arrangement series is pretty goof for the first five to seven volumes and is 20kk words per book.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:20
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Oooh, is that what all (or more probably most) of those short-form romance serials are? That makes a lot more sense... I had been assuming that most of the short stories I was finding in romance were at last semi-rigorously following the same structure as novel-length romances, hence the confusion.
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Jun 10, 2015 03:28
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