I now use Notepadd++ for all my writing: blogs, books, everything but emails (and it would probably be a good idea to write those there, too).
I just open a new tab and start right out, saving my work as a text file. I write in single space with no indents, leaving an extra line (carriage return) between paragraphs.
I also put a # symbol on its own line to indicate a change of scene. New chapters have titles in all caps, with a couple blank lines separating each from the end of the last one. (That will change in the actual book.) I use a key word in the title (like "chapter" or "chap"), so later I can find those thing for adding go-to-a-new page tags, the id link for tables of content, and so forth.
I put one space between sentences inside paragraphs, the way books (but not manuscripts) are meant to be. (Remember, you're writing the book, not the manuscript for the book. There are no manuscripts anymore.)
I use two hyphens (with no spaces before, after, or in between) to indicate dashes, and three periods for an ellipsis (again with no spaces). I'll want to run an automated search for those items later, so I keep the notation standard. (Of if not standard, consistent.)
I write all I want and revise the text until I'm goofy-headed. The only thing I miss is the Word Count tool. I still have a (semi) working copy of MS Word, so I can copy and paste a WIP there to check the wordage.
But in the indie pub world, the word count is a lot less important than in the trad pub world. If the work comes out short, put a lower price on it. If it's too long, readers love it. After all, they want to be immersed in your fictional world forever. For them, longer is always better.
(Recall that THE LORD OF THE RINGS came out in three volumes because of post-war economics. It was always meant to be one big book.)
Be sure to patch Notepad++ with the Spell Check option. And use it. If there's a highlighted word anywhere in the document, that's the only thing that gets checked. Otherwise, Spell Check starts at the top. If you want to stop halfway through and make some revisions, just highlight the text from there on down to resume spell checking in midstream. Or start again from the top, your choice.
For ebooks, I run the text file through MobiPocket Creator and open the resulting HTML in (where else?) Notepad++. Then I run the (amended) Puctuation Swap Grid, copy and paste the front-end of a standard ebook from "Code of a Short Book," and I'm ready to apply paragraph styles to chapter and section starts. Finally, I grab the TOC and OPF file templates and fill 'em out. (All this stuff is available in the Templates section, on the right-hand sidebar of this blog.)
Next comes GIMP2 and the creation of a cover and title page.
In the meantime, I open the HTML file in Firefox and start proofing. I narrow the window and bump up the font size till I have a Large Print ebook to work with. All its mind-boggling faults show up nicely.
Which is fine, because I've set up plenty of macros in Notepad++ for extensive rewriting (and new writing) in the HTML. Immediately checking the corrected text in the browser is addictive, I've found.
By the way, there's a new version of Notepad++ available. I haven't tried it yet, but expect to soon. Is it too much to hope there's a word count tool built in? (Yeah, probably.)
Friday, August 29, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
ADJUSTMENTS TO THE GRID
While I was putting together a new book for Kindle I noticed a problem with the Punctuation Swap Grid. Several unlikely searches were missing.
By unlikely, I mean searches unlikely to find a hit in a typical manuscript. Apparently the thing I'm working on right now is shading a bit out of the typical.
Following the grid caused the reversal of a double quote mark. The situation was unusual: a bit of quoted text inside parentheses. It was the sort of thing ("Like this right here!") that is more likely to be found in a work of nonfiction.
It got me to thinking about other unusual bits of construction:
The quoted words after a dash—"Of which this would be an example."
"The situation that might come up with single quotes and dashes—'like this'—with or without parentheses ('like this')."
So I'm going to add a bit of instruction to the Swap Grid. I don't think I'll be getting back into Gimp and remaking the Grid itself. I'll just slip in a note to add a couple more test searches:
--'
and
('
for single left quotes at the top of the list.
These are not Replace All searches. As with the two that are already there, you need to check each instance to make sure this is a legitimate left single quote (a quote within a quote) and not a case where a word is beginning with an apostrophe—which uses the right single quote mark.
As it stands, the next two searches on the Grid are for left double quotes, used for dialogue that begins at the start of a paragraph or is buried inside.
Add to that:
--"
and
("
to make sure you're dealing with these rare situations in your manuscript.
Like the searches for left single quotes, you don't have to set up the Replace window right away. Just do a Find search and click Count to see if there are any to deal with. If you find some, Replace All.
(These instructions are for Notepad++. You are using Notepad++, aren't you?)
By unlikely, I mean searches unlikely to find a hit in a typical manuscript. Apparently the thing I'm working on right now is shading a bit out of the typical.
Following the grid caused the reversal of a double quote mark. The situation was unusual: a bit of quoted text inside parentheses. It was the sort of thing ("Like this right here!") that is more likely to be found in a work of nonfiction.
It got me to thinking about other unusual bits of construction:
The quoted words after a dash—"Of which this would be an example."
"The situation that might come up with single quotes and dashes—'like this'—with or without parentheses ('like this')."
So I'm going to add a bit of instruction to the Swap Grid. I don't think I'll be getting back into Gimp and remaking the Grid itself. I'll just slip in a note to add a couple more test searches:
--'
and
('
for single left quotes at the top of the list.
These are not Replace All searches. As with the two that are already there, you need to check each instance to make sure this is a legitimate left single quote (a quote within a quote) and not a case where a word is beginning with an apostrophe—which uses the right single quote mark.
As it stands, the next two searches on the Grid are for left double quotes, used for dialogue that begins at the start of a paragraph or is buried inside.
Add to that:
--"
and
("
to make sure you're dealing with these rare situations in your manuscript.
Like the searches for left single quotes, you don't have to set up the Replace window right away. Just do a Find search and click Count to see if there are any to deal with. If you find some, Replace All.
(These instructions are for Notepad++. You are using Notepad++, aren't you?)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
BANNER PROMOTION
BLACK BOX is in a Countdown Promotion this week, from right now through the eleventh of August.
Last week about this time, to promote the coming countdown, I modified the book's cover image (which is shown along the left-hand sidebar) to include a banner giving the appropriate information.
(Update: The promotion is over. Here's the book cover with the banner.)
My reasoning was this. If I write a post about a particular promotion (like the post you're reading right now), only a handful of readers will see it during the active period. The average reader of this blog comes not to peruse the latest post, but to grab copies of the Kindle or ePub templates (see the right-hand sidebar). In addition, Google searchers are attracted to posts concerning topics of interest to indie pubbers.
After getting what they came for, curious folk appear to make use of the "popular posts" list to check out other parts of the blog. (The first two items on the list are disproportionately viewed.)
As a consequence, the banner promoting a price countdown will be seen by a lot more people than a blog post describing the event.
Normally. This last week, for some reason, the traffic was particularly meager. Sure, there were more hits overall than I expect to see for this post by August 11th, but not by the factor I was expecting.
Still, I think the idea of the banner is valid, and I will definitely do it again. At least, during the actual period of the promotion.
This time, however, I put up the banner nearly a week early. I thought: maximize the number of eyeballs. But you have to figure the sales of a book will suffer during the pre-promotion period, buyers holding off for the coming sale price.
On the other hand, does anyone worry about the "grumble factor" arising in readers who buy your book just BEFORE it goes on sale?
I suppose if books were free, the banner might only be deployed during the special period. In that case, you could create a reusable banner version of each of your book covers with the words "Free Today!" added.
This technique could also work for temporary price reductions. Once you've created an image of the banner-swathed book, its easy to go into the layout of your blog (or Web page) and swap images.
Even countdown promotion banners could be reused if you avoid mention of the actual dates. Treat it like a series of price reductions, creating a banner for each stage. Not TOO much work...
Speaking of free: Last week I ran a stealth promotion for five books, all free at Amazon for five days. I wanted to see what would happen if I said nothing on the promotion sites or in this blog.
I expected it to be a test of the visibility of each of the books.
I assume there's a certain level of traffic visiting each of the sell pages on a given day, people who discover the item and are interested, but put off by the regular price. Then, miraculously, the book is suddenly free! You have to figure 90% of those lookie-loos would pull the trigger, right?
I was surprised by the results.
Generally, the pattern of "takes" matched the results of PROMOTED giveaways. Nearly 62% were grabbed in the first two days, with the first day responsible for two and a half times more than the second (44.1% of total).
Oddly, the fourth and fifth days rallied, accounting for 27.5% of the total.
So the curve (which is nicely shown on the new Kindle Reports page) has two humps, with the first by far the tallest. It resembles the horns of a rhino: tall and sharp in front, low and blunt just behind it.
I expected to see a roughly flat plateau. Why would the discovery rate be so high in the first day or so? Fast word of mouth? Did some promotion site pick up on the books and put out the word, without being asked by me?
Googol searches have turned up promotions for my books on sites I never submitted to. It's easy to imagine content-hungry Webmasters grabbing up stuff like this. Everybody is living on advertising (more than before, now that the Amazon Affiliate program has become less generous). But it's one thing to crib from someone else's site. Are there guys out there prowling Amazon for free books just to put notices in front of their steady readers? Beats me.
It could be the lookie-loos are persistent, checking a number of wish-list books on a daily basis, hoping for that special price. If so, those who check daily could skew the count for the beginning of the free period, other guys coming in later.
Hard to tell.
Are there Web sites out there doing that? You submit the names of books you want and they notify you when one of them goes free (or on deep discount)?
(I was recently shopping online for computer stuff and some service popped up asking if I wanted them to inform me when the price went down.)
Marketing and selling are still pretty much opaque to me.
By the way, the book grabbed the most was the full-length tech thriller called MAD MINUTE, possibly indicative of the interests of the average Amazon book patron. I think romances (to include paranormal romances) are still the biggest sellers of mid-list books.
Last week about this time, to promote the coming countdown, I modified the book's cover image (which is shown along the left-hand sidebar) to include a banner giving the appropriate information.
(Update: The promotion is over. Here's the book cover with the banner.)
My reasoning was this. If I write a post about a particular promotion (like the post you're reading right now), only a handful of readers will see it during the active period. The average reader of this blog comes not to peruse the latest post, but to grab copies of the Kindle or ePub templates (see the right-hand sidebar). In addition, Google searchers are attracted to posts concerning topics of interest to indie pubbers.
After getting what they came for, curious folk appear to make use of the "popular posts" list to check out other parts of the blog. (The first two items on the list are disproportionately viewed.)
As a consequence, the banner promoting a price countdown will be seen by a lot more people than a blog post describing the event.
Normally. This last week, for some reason, the traffic was particularly meager. Sure, there were more hits overall than I expect to see for this post by August 11th, but not by the factor I was expecting.
Still, I think the idea of the banner is valid, and I will definitely do it again. At least, during the actual period of the promotion.
This time, however, I put up the banner nearly a week early. I thought: maximize the number of eyeballs. But you have to figure the sales of a book will suffer during the pre-promotion period, buyers holding off for the coming sale price.
On the other hand, does anyone worry about the "grumble factor" arising in readers who buy your book just BEFORE it goes on sale?
I suppose if books were free, the banner might only be deployed during the special period. In that case, you could create a reusable banner version of each of your book covers with the words "Free Today!" added.
This technique could also work for temporary price reductions. Once you've created an image of the banner-swathed book, its easy to go into the layout of your blog (or Web page) and swap images.
Even countdown promotion banners could be reused if you avoid mention of the actual dates. Treat it like a series of price reductions, creating a banner for each stage. Not TOO much work...
Speaking of free: Last week I ran a stealth promotion for five books, all free at Amazon for five days. I wanted to see what would happen if I said nothing on the promotion sites or in this blog.
I expected it to be a test of the visibility of each of the books.
I assume there's a certain level of traffic visiting each of the sell pages on a given day, people who discover the item and are interested, but put off by the regular price. Then, miraculously, the book is suddenly free! You have to figure 90% of those lookie-loos would pull the trigger, right?
I was surprised by the results.
Generally, the pattern of "takes" matched the results of PROMOTED giveaways. Nearly 62% were grabbed in the first two days, with the first day responsible for two and a half times more than the second (44.1% of total).
Oddly, the fourth and fifth days rallied, accounting for 27.5% of the total.
So the curve (which is nicely shown on the new Kindle Reports page) has two humps, with the first by far the tallest. It resembles the horns of a rhino: tall and sharp in front, low and blunt just behind it.
I expected to see a roughly flat plateau. Why would the discovery rate be so high in the first day or so? Fast word of mouth? Did some promotion site pick up on the books and put out the word, without being asked by me?
Googol searches have turned up promotions for my books on sites I never submitted to. It's easy to imagine content-hungry Webmasters grabbing up stuff like this. Everybody is living on advertising (more than before, now that the Amazon Affiliate program has become less generous). But it's one thing to crib from someone else's site. Are there guys out there prowling Amazon for free books just to put notices in front of their steady readers? Beats me.
It could be the lookie-loos are persistent, checking a number of wish-list books on a daily basis, hoping for that special price. If so, those who check daily could skew the count for the beginning of the free period, other guys coming in later.
Hard to tell.
Are there Web sites out there doing that? You submit the names of books you want and they notify you when one of them goes free (or on deep discount)?
(I was recently shopping online for computer stuff and some service popped up asking if I wanted them to inform me when the price went down.)
Marketing and selling are still pretty much opaque to me.
By the way, the book grabbed the most was the full-length tech thriller called MAD MINUTE, possibly indicative of the interests of the average Amazon book patron. I think romances (to include paranormal romances) are still the biggest sellers of mid-list books.
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