Vella anyone???

Hi gang. Craig with you today and there’s something new on the self publishing horizon. It’s officially called Kindle Vella. I’m kind of interested …

Vella anyone???

 

Wisdom on Writing

Scott Adams, author of Win Bigly and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, as well as the creator of the Dilbert comic series, shares his insights on writing.

 

Secrets to Getting Published

My public library had a great talk about getting published. They got a good crowd of aspiring writers who want to write fiction, non-fiction, children’s books and poetry. The talk was led by an editor and a writer, who does both self-publishing and publishing through an established publisher.

I don’t think I should share all the secrets as their handout was copyrighted, but I’ll share some facts and tips:

1. Know why you want to get published. Have a clear vision of what you consider success to be. (Getting published, wining an award, getting good reviews or what?)
2. More non-fiction books are written by first time writers.
3. Most self-published books sell less than 100 copies, and most of those copies are bought by the author. Ugh. ;-(
4. Learn to “eat rejection for breakfast.” So develop a thick skin and remember that major writers often got dozens or hundreds of rejection letters.
5. Adequately test your idea by seeing how people, not just loved ones, think about your idea.
6. If you do self-publish get your books into different sorts of shops. In a book shop your books is one of many, but in a florist or hospital shop there’s only a handful of other books.
7. The average new writer spends $3000-$5000 of their own money on preparing their books. Both speakers stressed that you should hire a professional editor. Someone who’s an English teacher or reads and edits professionally is required not just a pal.The cheapskate in me balks at spending so much money, but I’m mulling this over. I do have people whom I trust as good writers and grammarians read my work as a favor, but should I be paying someone? What do you think, readers?

 

Chicago History Museum, Service Safari

Today I went to the Chicago Historical Museum to do some research for a writing project I’ve started. It’s a historical

Chicago Historical Museum Research center

• What was my goal  and was it met? My goal was to get some primary sources on the 1870’s in Chicago to find out about how

• What was good about the service? The librarian was very approachable and helpful. She showed interest in my search and checked on my progress and offered new ideas as I worked.

• What detracted from the experience? I had no complaints.

• With whom did you interact? I spoke with a friendly reference librarian and I suppose an intern who brought the items I needed. You have to show a membership card or give the librarian the entrance ticket ($10) when you arrive.

• Were you confused at any time during the experience? I had to use a microfiche machine, which I hadn’t used since probably high school. The librarian gladly showed me how, but all the different knobs are hard to get straight right off the bat.

• Describe the physical space. The reference desk is near the entrance. In the main room there were several long tables with slips for patrons to fill out to request items. Along one side of the room are books on shelves and the opposite wall has several computers and microfiche machines.  Beyond the tables is an area with lots of old maps on tables.

When I went, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the scope of their collection or what would help me. I want to also try the Chicago Public Library, if non-residents can, and the Newberry Library so I wasn’t sure that I’d be back so I didn’t purchase a membership. Now I think I’ll go back perhaps weekly and hope to take one of their walking tours. So I will get a membership.  Going to one of these special libraries is kind of cool, but also a little intimidating at first. You can’t bring in any bags, pens, food or drink. You’re not supposed to bring in cameras, but one woman was snapping photos of documents with a camera. That was pretty obvious since her camera clicked loudly. I guessed she must have had permission.

You can just bring in a pencil and/or a laptop computer.

They’re only open in the afternoon. I did find out quite a bit from their history magazine about servants in that era. I went perused several weeks of the Chicago Times, a now defunct paper on microfiche. Best of all I got to go through Mrs. George Pullman’s diaries and address books of the time.

Related articles

• Service Safaris
• At the Mitchell Museum
• George Lucas Museum to Open in Chicago
• Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Will Call Chicago Home

 

From The Writer’s Alamanc

It’s the birthday of lexicographer Henry Watson Fowler (books by this author), born in Tonbridge, Kent, England (1858). He studied at Oxford and taught Latin, Greek, and English at a boys’ school in northwest England for 17 years, then resigned and moved to the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, built himself a one-room cottage, and began living like a hermit. Though he spent all his time writing essays and produced enough to fill two book-length manuscripts, he could not succeed in getting them published. He then came up with the idea to write “a sort of English composition manual, from the negative point of view, for journalists & amateur writers.” Collaborating with his brother on the work for Oxford University Press, he wrote The King’s English (1906), which begins:

“Anyone who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.”

The first chapter, titled “Vocabulary,” lays out the following principles:

“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”

The book was a success and he was commissioned to produce The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, which appeared in 1911. His biggest success, however, was A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), a collection of common mistakes in English that Fowler organized into categories, such as “Battered Ornaments,” “Love of the Long Word,” “Sturdy Indefensibles,” “Swapping Horses,” and “Unequal Yokefellows.”

T.S. Eliot said, “Every person who wishes to write ought to read A Dictionary of Modern English Usage … for a quarter of an hour every night before going to bed.”

 

Good Stories: What Christian Writers Can Offer

Yep, Barabara Nicolosi, founder of Act One and professional screenwriter, is right. I agree that we need to work and think really hard to offer the world the sort of stories Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Françoise Mauriac, Dostoevsky and Victor Hugo offered. But it would be worth it.

This weekend I finish my library class and start writing in earnest. Promise.

 

I Made It!

I finished the 100 pages for Script Frenzy 2012. Yep, 100 pages done.

It got me to find time for writing. But as I always say frenzy is the key word.

I’ll be the first to say that it’s a very rough piece.

As of today, 16,147 writers have written 244002 pages.

Related articles

• Script Frenzy Day 1 (diamandmoon.com)
• Script Frenzy! (procrastinatingpeople.wordpress.com)
• Script Frenzy Progress (diannwrites.wordpress.com)
• So about that whole Script Frenzy thing . . . (thotplaces.com)
• Script Frenzy (keystrokesandwordcounts.wordpress.com)
• Review first week Script Frenzy (diamandmoon.com)
• Script Frenzy: Are you in? (sedenman.wordpress.com)

 

Ebook Publishing

I found this video series on ebooks quite interesting. Not sure how I feel about the couple outsourcing their writing. It’s not illegal, but just was a shock. That comes up in one of the later videos.

They do offer good tips on coming up with popular ideas though.