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Formatting TYOTE for CreateSpace POD

January 26, 2011 By Mark 5 Comments

This post documents the workflow I followed while formatting my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE), for printing with CreateSpace. If you’re venturing down the same print-on-demand (POD) road I hope my experience makes your project a little easier. I also fervently hope this post reminds me of all the useful things I learned the next time I have a manuscript to format. (Had I not kept notes, ninety-percent of what follows would already be lost.)

As posted previously, I finalized my cover redesign, uploaded the files to CreateSpace, and got the proof back in short order. To my utter amazement, all of the decisions I made turned out exactly as I hoped, and I was quite pleased with the result.

But I worked hard for that happiness.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: CreateSpace, demand, elm, format, POD, print, year

The TYOTE Proof Arrives

January 9, 2011 By Mark 1 Comment

On December 31st I ordered the proof for my first print-on-demand (POD) book, a short story collection titled The Year of the Elm (TYOTE). I’m using CreateSpace (CS) to manufacture the book, and CS gave me three shipping options for the proof. I chose the slowest and cheapest option: three weeks for a little over three dollars. I did so because I couldn’t imagine it would actually take three weeks for the proof to arrive, and it didn’t. It took eight days, including a long three-day weekend.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: CreateSpace, elm, proof, shipping, TYOTE, year

Sticking a Shiv in Mark Twain

January 4, 2011 By Mark 6 Comments

I ran across a story yesterday about NewSouth, Inc’s intent to publish an expurgated version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which the n-word has been replaced. At first I assumed this to be some sort of fringe, crackpot effort. Upon reading further, however, I realized that a lot of thought had gone into the decision, and that the people behind the effort seemed sincere. That their objectives are misguided and ultimately untenable in light of their own stated beliefs only makes the decision to go ahead with the project that much more confusing and disappointing.

Before I question the individual and collective rationales that have led what appear to be otherwise decent people to the precipice of insanity, I want to make a larger point. Anyone over the age of twenty knows that you do not alter an author’s text to fit your world view. No matter how personally offensive you find an author’s words, no matter how society may have changed since a text was written, no matter how difficult open discussion of an author’s work might be, you do not, ever — ever — change an author’s text to make your life easier or better. You can write your own book, you can write volumes of criticism about the original text, but you’re not allowed to rewrite history for your own ends.

Everybody knows this, and until now I assumed that literary scholars and publishers understood the reasoning behind this prohibition better than most. That the initiator of this particular act of literary barbarism is Twain scholar Alan Gribben, a long-time English professor and head of the English Department at Auburn University at Montgomery, is almost mind-boggling. The publishers aiding and abetting Professor Gribben at NewSouth are Randall Williams and Suzanne La Rosa.

Anticipating pushback against his bastard child, Professor Gribben has already gone on a name-calling offensive:

Gribben has no illusions about the new edition’s potential for controversy. “I’m hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified,” he said.

If you’re not familiar with the hallowed halls of academia, this is the kind of thing that professors say when they they’re trying to protect shaky intellectual turf. Accusing people of textual purism is a transparent preemptive attempt to demonize those who object to Professor Gribben’s literary crime. It also conveniently ignores the fact that intentionally changing words in order to make a work more appealing or salable has nothing to do with textual purism. What Professor Gribben is doing is not disputing or advocating for a version of Huckleberry Finn, but actively rewriting Mark Twain in a demented attempt to save Twain from himself.

That NewSouth has decided to publish Professor Gribben’s version of history is perhaps understandable from a business perspective, but disappointing in terms of the cultural stewardship we hope all publishers embrace. Again, no dissection of the publisher’s motives need be undertaken in order to understand how flawed this decision is and how completely it undercuts the foundations of authorship, history and culture. Any publisher’s attempt to alter an author’s words is a violation not just of that author’s work, but of every author’s work, and anyone who proposes going down that road for any reason — and I mean any reason — by definition lacks the necessary steel to assess, edit or publish literature.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: Mark Twain

CreateSpace Shipping for Proofs

December 31, 2010 By Mark 4 Comments

My desire to offer a print-on-demand (POD) version of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm, is close to fruition. I’ve completed the content formatting and cover design, and passed CreateSpace’s submission tests for both files.

Yesterday I ordered my first proof. While filling out the ordering form I was given the following shipping options:

  • Economy Shipping $3.61 Estimated Arrival Date: Tue, Jan 18, 2011
  • Standard Shipping $6.39 Estimated Arrival Date: Wed, Jan 12, 2011
  • Priority Shipping $24.78 Estimated Arrival Date: Tue, Jan 04, 2011

Now, keep in mind that I ordered my proof on December 30th. That means the estimated shipping times for the above options are 19 days, 13 days and 5 days respectively. Those times also include 3, 2 and 1 weekends, respectively — and all include a national holiday for New Year’s Day.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: CreateSpace, proof, shipping, time

Character Flaws

December 29, 2010 By Mark Leave a Comment

When I started Neil Rorke’s character blog I knew it would be difficult if not impossible to drive reader interest through plotting. Foreshadowing a big plot event, then delivering on that moment, could easily (if not necessarily) lead to a soap-opera/cliffhanger mentality. Not only would that kind of storytelling compel more of the same, it would reveal me as the author-orchestrator of those events and diminish any sense of character I might be able to create. And that would be the exact opposite of the effect I wanted to have on readers.

By sticking with aspects of character, and by sticking with the manner of posting inherent in real-world character blogs, I’m giving readers very little to hang on when they drop by. Whatever it is in plotting that drives a story, I’m not making that available.

That’s a conscious storytelling choice, of course, but it’s also consistent with Neil as a person and with what’s going on in Neil’s life at this moment. So instead of trying to drive Neil toward some particular plot event, or even some revelation of character, I’ve been trying to let Neil be Neil. He gets to post about things that interest him, and he gets to say whatever he wants to say, whenever he wants, as long as it’s in character.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Blog Fiction Tagged With: blogs, character, Neil, plot, Rorke, story

The TYOTE POD cover

December 19, 2010 By Mark 3 Comments

Having had the smarts to avail myself of the experience, insight, technical skill and patience of designer Joleene Naylor, I now have a cover for the print-on-demand (POD) version of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm. I’m not only satisfied with the result, I’m thankful I didn’t have to produce it on my own. Whatever time it might have taken to do it myself, and however much I might have learned along the way, I wouldn’t have been able to replicate the give-and-take that helped us arrive at the solution you see here.

TYOTE Wraparound Cover

All of the issues I wanted to deal with or resolve have been dealt with or resolved. The look of the POD cover is an evolution of the original e-book cover, but it also speaks more directly (albeit suggestively) to the contents of the stories. I can’t help but feel that it’s an improvement.

Total cost for all of the advice, artistic input, technical wizardry and plain old common sense that Joleene provided: $50.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: cover design, design, elm, Joleene, Naylor, POD, print on demand, TYOTE, year

Glimmers

December 14, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

One of the things I’m still learning as a writer is how important it is to start writing so there’s something to react to and refine and revise. I’m not afflicted with perfectionism — at least not the paralyzing kind — and for that I’ll be eternally thankful. At times I do tend to think things through too much, past the point at which I should start implementing or prototyping or laying down a first draft.

In terms of blog fiction and writing a character blog, I had my own conception of what that would be like as a task, and how I could best implement that goal in terms of technique. And so far I can’t say that I’ve been too far off in a material way. What has transpired that I didn’t predict is that from time to time I’ll write something — maybe just a sentence — that suddenly springs to life for me. I can’t predict these moments, I can’t even harness them yet, but I sense them, and that’s making me want to continue the experiment.

If I can say anything useful to other authors it’s that a fiction blog is first and foremost still a fictional work, and there’s no reason not to push that aspect of the work as far as possible. I’m working with a character and a fictional world that relates closely to the real world, and in that there are some constraints. But I can also see now that I’m not pushing hard enough as an author. And that’s something I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have predicted.

To be clear, I don’t mean that I should be throwing more drama or plot points at my characters or at the reader. I’m not trying to sucker an audience with cliffhanger antics, and I don’t want Neil’s blog to turn into a soap opera. I’m talking about authority and force: the imposition of authorial power on the text itself. I think I should be doing more of that, at least to see if it works or not.

Filed Under: Blog Fiction Tagged With: blogs, character, content, Fiction, point of view, voice

The ISBN Ownership Question

December 6, 2010 By Mark 25 Comments

In preparing to publish my first print-on-demand book I’ve had to confront a number of issues. Along with formatting and pricing and cover design I’ve gone back and forth about the ISBN ownership question. In the end I’ve come to a conclusion about ISBN’s that surprises me a bit, but I think I’m right. And if I’m not right, I don’t think it will cost me anything.

If you don’t know much about ISBN’s, don’t feel bad. I didn’t know anything about them until a year ago, when I set out to learn what I could. It’s a measure of how naive I was that I thought ISBN’s were some sort of quasi-governmental tracking number. In fact, ISBN’s are a product sold by the monopolistic R.R. Bowker company (which doesn’t go out of its way to make clear that it is not, in fact, a quasi-governmental agency).

I don’t dispute the publishing industry’s need for something like an ISBN. Given that a single book can be published in different versions and editions, and in different languages and countries, there obviously needs to be some way to differentiate between all those variations. If you want the Romanian large-print edition of Moby Dick, you need some means of ordering that ensures you get the version you’re expecting. The ISBN system makes that possible.

I’m also not against the idea that a for-profit company services the ISBN market. I don’t like monopolies, and R.R. Bowker is clearly a monopoly. But every publisher, bookseller and book manufacturer relies on the ISBN numbering system, and until that changes — or somebody shoves the Sherman Anti-Trust Act down Bowker’s throat — there’s no point in fighting the beast. (Some of you are wondering how multiple companies could hand out ISBN’s without the whole system collapsing. It’s a fair question, answered in full by the various companies registering domain names all over the world.)  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: bowker, cost, isbn, value

Maintaining Voice on a Character Blog

November 29, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

What is an author’s voice?* I think a lot of people see voice as synonymous with style, and I can understand why. Many authors one might point to as having a strong voice are also strong stylists. But I’m not a big fan of authors who are stylists, in large part because their manner of writing tends to overshadow whatever story they’re telling. That’s a generalization to be sure, but it’s founded on my belief that nouns and verbs matter more than adjectives and adverbs, that less is usually more, that all (or almost all) darlings should be killed, and that unless the author’s presence is critical to the story the author ought to get out of the way. But that’s just me.

Coming at the question from a direction both more illuminating and a great deal less cranky, think for a moment about any writer you love, and ask yourself what it is that is irreducibly distinct about the way that writer writes. What is it that makes Dickens different from Tolstoy or Jackie Collins, as well as readily identifiable in his own right? Whatever that is — however you might describe it with examples or rules — that’s what I think of as voice.

I don’t think any author’s voice is so distinct that it can be identified in every word or turn of phrase. When Tom Clancy or William Faulkner or Flannery O’Conner has a character say, “Hello!”, I don’t think you can conclude a whole lot about the author’s voice from that one-word sentence. Pull back far enough, however — taking into account the surrounding sentences and paragraphs, as well as the narrative context — and at some point you’ll be able to distinguish between the three authors. And I think that’s probably the most important point thing I can say about the subject of voice: it’s more easily identified by considering the whole of an author’s work rather than looking for specific markers.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I myself do not think about my own voice at all, ever. To do so would be quantum authorship, in which identification of my voice would necessarily change it. I write the way I write, and I encourage other authors to adopt this same hands-off attitude. As far as I’m concerned, nothing good can come of attempts to manage your own authorial voice.

Which is why I’m now quite consternated by the fix I’m in.

[ Read more ]

Filed Under: Blog Fiction Tagged With: blogs, character, Fiction, voice

Site Seeing: Zoe Winters

November 15, 2010 By Mark 6 Comments

I’m extraordinarily late to the party here. As Zoe Winters seems to be pulling back from the web, I’m suddenly taking appropriate interests in her posts:

In coming back and not wanting the break to end, I’m making some adjustments to how I do things. It’s pointless to take a break like this, then come back and be crazy again. Being crazy sucks. Being stressed and depressed and wanting to quit because you’ve sucked all the fun out of what you’re doing sucks also.

As I said in retweeting this post, almost all relationships require boundaries, and the internet is a relationship. To whatever extent a computer terminal and access to virtual distractions might be a threat to anyone’s productivity, for a writer the seductions can be almost overwhelming.

Zoe’s voice is the voice of a working writer trying to grapple with all of the changes happening in the publishing space. Hers is also a voice devoid of the auto-branded corporate tone that some writers seem to gravitate to with frightening ease.

I don’t know Zoe, but when I read her posts I feel like I do. Enough said.

Update: Zoe seems to have wiped her old WordPress blog/site, which this post originally referred to.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged With: site seeing

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