Tag Archives: Publishing

General musings, Novella, Publishing, Short Story

A trend in the making?


Seem to be writing a lot of short stories that are what I’m beginning to call ‘future parables’. Which actually goes with science fiction as a genre. A lot of stories come from the viewpoint of knowing what I have learned about humanity, what would happen if?

‘Blink’ is about full retinal controlled digital life of a hard partying socialite, a borderline narcissist, and what happens when her digital life disappears in what might be called a fifteen minute city.

A new 6,000 worder called ‘The Winter Trees’ similarly asks what might happen if a Carrington level solar event takes down the electrical grid and much of the electronics reliant thereon. Written from the perspective of a small group of determined holdouts who live their lives dodging killer drones acting as enforcement for the all controlled.

Then there’s the ever changing versions of ‘Not with a bang’ about what might happen if those zany kids in the World Economic Forum and their adherents actually get ‘carbon capture’ to work on an industrial scale. In my version children betray their parents to the authorities for the crime of ‘denial’ and the machines actually work. Until of course all the plant life on Earth dies, thus every human does too, eventually. Not telling how, that would ruin the ending.

I seem to have a whole collection of such stories which have never been submitted to a mainstream publisher, and probably never will because I tired of that circus over ten years ago and rarely send anything to anyone except good old Leg-Iron books. Maybe I’ll just post them on this site. Don’t know.

Still struggling with the overall narrative of the final in the trilogy ‘Darkness between the stars’. Trying hard to keep the narrative consistent from the point of view of technology. Alcubierre type warp drives, no sub or hyperspace comms, a fractured Earth full of power games and ruthless ambition. Same stuff different day.

Then there’s ‘Straight on through morning’ a novella length MSS about the rise and fall and rise of a bunch of Asteroid miners set in the ‘Stars’ technology universe. Still contemplating putting in a fight scene where one of the protagonists calls another a ‘Musky’ (A fan of Elon Musk) leading to broken furniture, missing teeth and various items of grievous bodily harm. The sequence in question is still in note form at this stage, but am vacillating. Is it too near the knuckle? Might as well have a play, see how it feels.

One obstruction to writing has been the ongoing process of refurbishing our home in the west of Ireland. Latest upgrade is a revamped kitchen. A saga full of expensive wood, lots of white tiles and getting rid of a whole pile of 1990’s kitchen cabinetry. We know this because people had written names and dates on the plasterwork behind them. This has given rise, on my part, to a couple of burns, the recurrence of old back and knee injuries and various cuts, bruises and a great deal of florid four letter invective. Fortunately that’s mostly over and my kitchen will soon be fully operational once more.

Sometimes I wonder if I might like to go back to using an old typewriter. Had one back in the 1970’s and 80’s, which did sterling service until I lost it in a house move. Did try to buy a replacement from a person in Sligo, but after a number of enthusiastic online messages and a minor road trip on my part he never showed up at the location provided. So after a two hour wait I simply walked away and had a nice day instead.

Sligo is quite a pretty town. I’ve stayed there before. It’s relaxed and easy going, an Irish University town well worth a visit. Pity about the typewriter, but since that was not to be I’ll just keep my old laptop limping along.

Publishing

Progress


Have re-written “Oggie” and re-titled it as “Aug-E”. The beginning of the story has always worked well, but I was forever unhappy with the last version that can be found under the ‘Short Stories’ menu. So I chopped it in half and junked the Paul Calvin ambush story line, preferring to follow my stepdaughters comment about one of the characters, the transgender ‘Pete’. She told me she was disappointed with the original and told me I should have done more with ‘Pete’, so I switched story lines to make it more about the dynamic between the uber-male character Frank Yale and the less physical ‘Pete’.

At a shade under seven thousand words, it’s a much better read than the original and I liked the follow through from the gangland theme in the beginning. I know about gangs and how they work from my experiences in the late 70’s with some of the outlaw biker gangs in Birmingham, UK. Also, having worked with two pre-operative transgenders whilst in nursing college during the early 1980’s, I did some more research and threw in what I knew from personal experience. It seems to ring true. So I’m putting it into the ‘finished’ file.

The story emphasis in Aug-E is now more about transitions, both from the physical and psychological aspects. I’ve got an idea for some basic but interesting artwork and the ending is a lot better, but no spoilers at this point. It will form the key story from a collection of quirky science fiction short stories with the working title “Aug-E and clones”. I have the skeletons of another eleven tales that I shall be working on during January and February, hopefully with a total word count of fifty to sixty thousand words. White on black art for the cover and simple silhouette art for the inside of the hardback as before. It’s a lot simpler, far more striking, and fits in with Stobor Books general artistic ethos. Which it to keep things simple and striking.

Have finished the eBook text for the eBook version of “The Cat Tree and other stories” so should be getting an ISBN for that version in the next week of so, after which that will be released to follow up with the Hardback original which should be hitting Amazon any day now. Although if anyone wants a hard copy, I would prefer it if they bought it direct via this link. That way I get more of the royalties.

Distribution

Done and almost done


Life recently has been reduced to a box ticking exercise.

The Cat Tree and other stories draft proofed and final edit – done

Artwork design including logo for Stobor Books – done

Registration for free bar code as a publisher – done

ISBN and bar code created – done

Upload and recheck of all files – done

Proof copy ordered for final production check – done

Lie down in a darkened room – To do.

Well two weeks from now I should have my proof copy before giving the final okay on distribution so I can shift my focus back to writing once more. Or then there’s doing some brand recognition for Stobor Books. That means a number of other boxes to tick. There will be links, there will be other publicity related things. That and the eBook which I have to complete before December 12th.

Then maybe I can set aside some time for a much needed rewriting of the Stars trilogy. I’ve done the rough edit and will try to be ruthless with the next draft. In the meantime I’m going to try and place some copy with some of the science fiction magazines in the United States. That and keep on top of the day job.

No rest for the wicked.

Distribution

Free ISBNs?


Well that is a turn up for the books. Quite literally. Canadian authors and publishers can qualify for free International Standard Book Numbers (Link here). Normally someone like Bowkers in the USA will charge US$25 each per 13 digit book number, or an eye watering GBP 89 From Neilsen in the UK. The only ‘price’ ISBN Canada stipulate is that the author / publisher send them a free copy for the Canadian Literary Archive.

Places like Lulu.com and other print to order houses do also offer ISBNs for free, but I’ve always had a nagging doubt that the distribution on those is limited somehow.

For the record, ISBN Canada registration was quite painless and no credit cards etcetera were requested. Although the Canadian Literary archive do say that it might take up to ten business days for processing, Stobor Books login ID came through at 4pm Tuesday 26th November, after being registered on the evening of Friday 22nd. Which I thought was quite brisk. Especially for a Government based initiative.

Will register the hardback and eBook editions for ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ this evening when I get time to do so. Then I will create the barcodes using this site. The rest is simply finalising the layout and pressing the ‘go stud’.

Deep breath and off we go.

Update: I’m impressed. I filled in the online form and got my ISBN within thirty seconds. Fairly straightforward process too. The barcode likewise.

Distribution

New Venture


Small announcement for those interested. I am launching a new venture, Stobor Books. At first this will be merely a vehicle for my forthcoming edition of ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ and other follow up volumes on long-neglected projects.

Stobor, once I’ve ironed out all the bugs in publishing and distribution, will be a niche publisher specialising in Fantasy, Science fiction and Horror. Maybe I’ll open it up to submissions from other authors, maybe I won’t. Maybe the whole thing will be a massive flop, but if you don’t try you never find out.

General musings, Publishing

Post published


Waiting game again. The second proof copy of “The Cat Tree and other stories” has been despatched and will reach me by the end of the month. This should finally mark the end of the writing and editing process so I can move forward into the distribution and marketing phases.

While the interminable wait goes on, I will fill the unforgiving minutes between then and now with a little motorcycle riding, before the weather really closes down in October. Did try yesterday, but when I passed the eighty kilometre marker, what had been merely a little moisture in the air turned into enough rain to make the roads damp, so, being a fair weather rider, I beat a hasty retreat down the Island Highway home to Victoria, moisture rapidly beading my visor and the front of the fairing, as you can see in the attached video. Apologies for the lack of sound, but it’s my first time using this particular camera and I’d managed to mute the microphone.

Now I’ve ridden in far worse, everything from snow, hail, torrential rain and cold that put a quarter inch breastplate of ice onto my leathers. Cold that bit through three layers of gloves within a mere twenty miles so that I had to warm my gloves on the cylinder head. The worst of those times was over thirty five years ago, but now that I am over sixty summers, my taste and tolerance for such saddle bound masochism is much diminished.

Today my wife has the car for a lunch date with friends. Looking out of my office window, I see we have sunshine, which after I finish work today at lunchtime I intend to take full advantage of.

Publishing

Proof of publishing


Had a word with the printers and they are sending me a new, hopefully no missing pages this time, proof copy of my book “The Cat Tree and other stories”. They were very good about it and will expedite matters to ensure the issue doesn’t happen again.

There will be just about enough time to do the final proof edit and approval before I head off to London in mid-October. Whilst I’m over in the UK, I’ll take a little time out and re-read the proof a few times before giving the green light for distribution in early November. Just in time to be out for distribution 1st December.

The book itself has four previously published stories nestled within it’s elegant hardback cover. One is a dark little tale of mix and match mythologies, the second a plain old fashioned ghost story. The third and fourth are both comic supernatural tales meant to act as an antidote to the seriousness of life. The story behind the five thousand word tale entitled “Three park benches and a bicycle rack” is a happy little anecdote where the title came before the story. As it sometimes does. Must start doing video’s of those. Just video commentaries about where some of my stranger ideas come from.

One of the comments I did get from the printers today was that the original MSS they received had no stray codes in it that could have accounted for the missing pages, so they were going to do a little due diligence on their own internal processes. Could have just been a one-off error, but I did submit a second, and triple checked MSS via their web portal to replace the first, which had two minor errors (One formatting, one factual) which escaped the proofing process. Spelling, apart from the dialogue, is OED standard. The typesetting is mostly in nice, easy to read Times New Roman 12point, with only the headings and title being larger. Overall it’s as nice a piece of work as I’ve seen, on or off a bookstores shelving.

This is one of the things no-one tells you about when it comes to publishing. First, that the manuscript has to be pretty damn good before anyone will even so much as glance at it, second, that you as the author have to do a hell of a lot more than just write. You have to give approval for designs, layout and any changes to the text. Procrastination may be the thief of time, but publishing is a whole different animal.

After your book is listed for distribution there’s the marketing. Which even big publishers tend to leave that to the author. I recall reading world famous Auto journalist and satirist P J O’Rourke’s account of sitting alone behind a pile of his own work in some remote midwestern US mall.

Which can midwife that nagging doubt in a writers soul. You wrote the book, of course it’s good. Isn’t it? So why haven’t you sold many? Why does no-one seem interested? Or why is it already in the ‘remaindered’ section of Barnes & Noble? There may be several reasons; not least of which is timing of the release. Any press releases you send out may end up spiked in favour of something much more newsworthy, or relegated to an obscure corner where few eyes ever stray. There are so many other possibilities they are hard to enumerate, let alone describe. It may well be simply that your work is in an unfashionable part of a genre. Your standard of writing may be on a par with the literary greats, your characters fully realised figures that jump straight off the page into a readers head, but if no-one is currently interested in the topic, this might well be a reason why it is not selling. Your initial premise might even have arisen from an idea that is too far ahead of it’s time. There is no one reason for a great idea not taking off.

Writing is a tough business, especially when the world fails to immediately share your good opinion of your work. Whenever rejection hits I find there is always a certain sensation of being more than a little crushed. The wounds of rejection re-open time and time again and during the upheavals of disturbed sleep the vampire of doubt bites, sucking creative blood from aching veins, draining the impetus, disconnecting the narrative drive. After a bad episode it’s often very hard to put fingers to keyboard.

Sometimes the only answer is to just keep your head down, try another genre and never, ever give up. Because even if you never sell much, at least it won’t be because you didn’t try.

Publishing

Looking good, but…


I received my proof copy of “The Cat Tree and other stories” on Thursday 12th September, so in my naivete I thought I’d do a mildly tongue in cheek ‘unboxing’ video. What the hell, everyone else does them.

Here’s what happened (Do not watch with the volume turned up too high)

Can you hear my teeth grinding from here?

Distribution, Publishing

The proof


Well that’s it for the most part. The heavy lifting is done and here’s the screenshot of the first proof copy which should reach me by mid-September for final proof and edit.

After many hours checking and re-checking I’m fairly happy with the content, but if asked to go through it one more time, I’m not sure that I could resist the temptation to tinker.

As advertised this small collection is like an old brides wedding dress list. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Although without the traditional sixpence in the shoe. I like it. And if asked would add that this is primarily fiction to my taste.

Once I have the actual copy in my hot little hands I’ll be busy for a week or so checking on the finished result before approving the design and outline of the hardback edition for distribution. Thence I may send a couple of copies as gifts to friends. The eBook will follow in December, all things being well.

General musings, Video

Next platform over


Like most sensible people, I’m moving from the old school social media to Minds and Gab. Minds profile is up and toddling with a Gab profile barely out of nappies. Twitter and Facebook have lost all utility and are rapidly becoming political echo chambers. People are getting banned and their content interfered with, which are not the platforms I joined way back when. The silicon Valley companies now want to dictate what others can say and think. So I’ve joined the exodus. I’ve also opened a DriveTribe account, simply because I love cars and motorcycles. May even post a few things, like a riding video from Vancouver Island next time I take the big dog out to hunt.

YouTube is going the same way, so what the hell, I’m electing to move away from it to a video sharing service which isn’t subject to such strictures. I’ll be deleting all my old stuff, which I never really liked, off YouTube and posting much better content on Bitchute. The one downside is that video embedding bitchute hosted content for wordpress is tricky. However, what will happen is I’m already posting partial short story readings and other short video content on YouTube with the full versions on Bitchute.

Next video reading will be “Another day at the office” a 1650 word story from my forthcoming fantasy and supernatural collection, ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’. One minor caveat; in these times of hyper sensitivity I find myself having to post a 13+ profane language advisory on this particular offering, even though by my native working class British standards the language contained therein is very mild indeed, which I consider necessary for both dramatic impact and characterisation. If anyone feels they might be offended by such language, then a caution will be given for them to either stop reading or continue under their own recognisance. Therefore no legal or moral responsibility will be taken by me as author for any offence taken by any reader, ridiculous though this seems.

Here is a short video of me explaining who I am and what I do. Also why I’m doing it. This is going on my Subscribestar profile, when I finally get that up and running.

‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ is on schedule for completion for the end of August / start of September, as I only have one story to finish and another to re-edit. Estimated length 42,000 words.

Update: Video also now uploaded to Bitchute.

General musings, Publishing

The stories so far


Regarding the short story collection ‘The Cat tree and other stories’. Hardback scheduled for October 2019 release. eBook scheduled for mid / late November / early December 2019. I’m taking a break in London UK from 2nd week October 2019 to 2nd week November, so will check the final edit and proof of the Hardback edition before then and the eBook version after I return home.

I will be taking two free copies of the hardback edition as gifts for friends who have expressed an interest.

The stories so far;
From ‘The Cat Tree’ series
The Cat Tree Completed. Supernatural
White Noise Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
The Unwelcoming Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
Josephine Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural None of these will make the cut. Too much rewriting needed. Too many negative memories. Too personal.

From the 1990’s
Polish Ted Completed. Ghost story

Post 2004 tales
Moonlit Shadow Completed (Minor changes from Underdog anthology 7.) Horror
Just another day at the office Completed. Horror / Comedy
Good here, innit? Completed (Minor changes from copy submitted for Underdog anthology 9.) Horror / Comedy
A Coelacanth in the bathroom Completed (Minor edits from Underdog anthology 8.) Horror / Comedy
The hunting of the Squonk Work in progress 50%. Supernatural Horror
Restoration Completed. Ghost story
Honey tells Completed. General / Social commentary
Three park benches and a bicycle rack Completed. Horror / Comedy
Coffee House Completed. Supernatural
Bats! Completed. Horror / Comedy

I’ve a couple of older tales which need a lot of work, so they may not make the cut by the September 2019 deadline.

Current word count circa 37,000. On schedule for estimated completion word count 55,000-60,000 50,000. Total estimated length around 170 pages in current updated format.

Artwork is about 75% complete. Nothing fancy. All black and white in similar style to the cover at 300 DPi. I’ll triple check the proof copy before allowing distribution.

May collate a couple of sci-fi novellas with a few other sci-fi short stories for the New Year 2020. Work on ‘Darkness between the stars’ continues. Will re-issue heavily edited trilogy as three volumes when complete, day job permitting.

Note; this post is subject to periodic update.

General musings, Old projects, Stars Trilogy

New story


Well, there’s another 4300 word submission accepted by Leg Iron books. This time for their Halloween compilation. That will make three stories I’ve placed with them in under twelve months, which isn’t bad. The money isn’t an issue and I’m never going to make a fortune writing, but it’s fun.

I seem to have struck a chord with my semi-comical little narratives although if they have a major fault it is this; when I start a story I often have no idea where it is going to end up. My narratives often go wandering into the weeds and get lost somewhere in the long grass. I’ve tried planning, laying out careful plot lines but the thing I really enjoy is romping off to play where my wild ideas are. My inner child likes to prod at things with a stick, lift the rocks to see what’s underneath. I also like to take the odd sideswipe at PC ‘culture’. Which amuses me. Although I often don’t know where to stop.

For example, my latest submission began life under the working title ‘The Coat’ but after the plot got lost in the woods at around the four thousand word mark, I had to send out a search party to bring the narrative back to a timely conclusion or it would still be wandering in circles. When I was done, the tale had been tidied up and shortened with a new title; “Good here, innit?” which makes sly fun of extreme ‘hate speech’ laws in a highly repressive society. And that revelation is as much as I am going to give away. Kevin Hillman at Leg Iron books liked it right away, which shows that we share a certain macabre sense of humour. There is another similar work in progress comic short story with the working title; “Three benches and a bicycle rack” which is as much as I’m giving away here. Let’s just say it will be funnier than “A Coelacanth in the bathroom”, I think.

Regarding promised videos; I’m having a few issues with glitchy sound. When I record a video, I like to do my readings in one take, often over twenty minutes at a time. What I’m experiencing is the recording randomly dropping whole words and occasionally even two or three, so a sentence ends up making no sense at all. Which is frustrating. However, when my recording issues are resolved I shall be adopting a policy of posting only partial readings to YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion with the full versions exclusively on Bitchute. Suffice it to say I have good reasons for doing so. YouTube’s policy of erasing whole channels for being even mildly politically incorrect for one.

Then there’s the issue of my planned compilation. This is still a work in progress, but I have a few new ideas for satirical supernatural stories which I want to include. This will delay the final project completion by a month or two but I hope any potential readers will find it worth the wait.

On the ‘Stars trilogy’ front, the current draft of ‘Darkness between the stars’ has clambered arthritically over the 90,000 word mark after the last edit with about another 60,000 to go. That is how much further I have to travel down that path. What I have written so far is good and I have the last four thousand words already written. Unfortunately marrying the two parts together in a meaningful way is proving more difficult than I had first anticipated. There’s almost too much to keep in my head at any one time.

In the meantime, just to keep the story machine in my head working, I will continue with the short stories and see what strikes.

Publishing

The stories so far


…for ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ which is a collection of tales from the supernatural and comedic side of my back catalogue.

Here are the titles so far;
The Cat Tree……………….. The first of ‘The cat Tree’ series
White Noise………………… The second of ‘The cat Tree’ series
The unwelcoming…………….. The third of ‘The cat Tree’ series
Polish Ted…………………. A modern ghost story
Moonlit shadow……………… Is Santa who we think he is?
The Coat…………………… Can an item of apparel be possessed?
A Coelacanth in the bathroom…. A nasty shock on a wet English Monday
The Hunting of the Squonk……. A hunt for a legendary North American creature
Restoration………………… A ghost story
Honey Tells………………… Homeless woman haunts herself
Coffee House……………….. A meeting with a famous ghost
A barbecue of bats………….. You’ve got an infestation of what?

There are two others which might make the cut, but this looks like being a slim volume of around 120 pages. The above list is subject to change. I’m keeping the artwork simple. Mainly line drawings and silhouettes.

Publishing, Stars Trilogy

New project


As Xenophon said to Claudius; “Better out than in.”

With luck there will be a new project available in hardback and eBook format by the end of May. Should be on Barnes & Noble and Amazon by then. The working title being ‘The Cat tree and other stories’ Essentially it’s going to be a collection of my short fantasy and supernatural fiction, the raw text of some which can be found on the pages of this web site. What the hardback edition will have is artwork as illustrations to accompany the text. I’ll try and add some of these to the eBook if formats allow. Artwork for front cover will include this image.

All the twisted tales from my back catalogue, including several which have never seen the light of day, will be in this modest omnibus edition. This renewed focus is because paying work has slacked off considerably and Angie is going away with house guests for a couple of weeks, which means I can focus on getting the literary side of things done and out there, so there will be a video for the short version of ‘Blink’ while our house guests are elsewhere.

A full list of edited and improved stories will be available shortly, although I’m writing a couple of fantasy tales especially for this edition. Working titles are “The hunting of the Squonk” and “The coat”. I may also create a similar package for my back catalogue of short science fiction stories. That project will include novella versions of ‘Blink’ and ‘Oggie’ which are significantly longer (and better) than the originals. Better fleshed out characters and backstories, more savage twists.

Work proceeds very slowly on the third volume of the Stars series. So far I’ve carved off most of the fat, which leaves around 70,000 words to date but there are two main story threads which need tying off and completing from ‘Falling’. Also two spin off projects at around 30,000 words each and counting.

A word of advice for those looking at online payments processors; Don’t bother with Patreon. One very good reason being that they’re very limited. Payouts only go via PayPal (More fees) and one other online service. You can’t actually, as an individual, transfer funds directly from Patreon to your bank account like you can with Subscribestar. This is very limiting and another very good reason not to use Patreon. Payment speed is also snail-like. Up to ten working days for an online transfer between Patreon and Paypal? I have transferred thousands in under forty-eight hours from the UK to Canada using only my regular bank accounts and the worst that happened was an early morning phone call from UK bank security. By contrast my last royalty cheque from Leg-iron books cleared immediately after taking four days to arrive via airmail from Scotland. Draw your own conclusions. In crayon if you must, but draw them nonetheless.