Short Stories – Page 15 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Good things are coming

…I can feel it.

I got my tax return today, and it was significantly more than I was expecting. Between that and the money I’m getting from my current temp job, I may have enough to last through this month and the next. The last time I took a month off to focus exclusively on the writing, I accomplished quite a lot; I’m hoping I can do that again.

My current job is a 40 hr/week data entry position at a local alarm company. The work is kind of tedious, but I can read blogs and listen to my mp3 player while I do it, so it’s actually kind of nice.

The workplace is pretty laid back, the people are way cool, and the work looks to be steady at least for the next few weeks. A 20 hour or 30 hour job would probably be more conducive to writing, but for a short term gig this is pretty good.

Also, I’m seriously considering releasing Genesis Earth as an indie ebook if it doesn’t make the next cut in the ABNA contest. Recent developments in the publishing industry make me think that this might be a better path to go with my career.

In February of 2011, ebooks surpassed all other trade categories (hardback, mass market, etc), taking ~30% of the market. Just a couple of months before that, ebooks were around 8%. At the same time, Kris Rusch has evidence that traditional publishers may be under-reporting ebook revenues (and underpaying authors) by as much as 90%. I can’t go the traditional route without giving up my ebook rights, and with the current climate and royalty rates (14.9% of cover price for the (indefinite?) life of the ebook), that’s looking like a worse business decision every day.

So here is what I’m thinking of releasing, in the order (more or less) of when I plan to release them:

Journey to Jordan: Basically, a combination of blog posts and private journal entries from my experiences in Jordan. It’s non-fiction, not a novel, but I think it’s the best project to practice on (probably because it will require the most formatting work). Besides, I put a lot of myself into it, and it deserve to find an audience.

Genesis Earth: This is a full length novel, and has received a lot of positive feedback from friends, reviewers, and people who’ve picked up the free excerpt from the ABNA contest. If it doesn’t make the semi finals, or (better) if it makes the semi finals but doesn’t win the grand prize, I’m seriously considering releasing it as an ebook. It would certainly be a leap, but honestly, what have I got to lose?

Sholpan: This is a novella based on Stella’s story from my novel, Bringing Stella Home. I haven’t shopped BSH around the traditional markets much yet, and I think it could find a home there, which would certainly give my career a terrific launch. At this point, I’m looking to build my career more than earn a living, so I probably won’t release BSH until after I’ve shopped it around…but Sholpan, I think, would be a good way to test the waters and build things on the indie front.

Bringing Stella Home: At the same time, if Sholpan does well, and things start to take off in a surprising way, I’d seriously consider releasing Bringing Stella Home as an ebook. I don’t anticipate releasing it any earlier than August or September, but you never know. Also, this one has an advantage in that it’s part of a series; Genesis Earth is just book one of an unfinished trilogy.

So far, my short stories aren’t doing spectacularly well, but that’s okay–my goal with them was mainly to get some practice, not to make a ton of sales. And even so, they are selling at a modest rate, though it’s too early to notice any definite patterns.

I’m curious, though, because it seems that readers are drawn more to novels and full-length books than short stories. Will things be different when I release a few novels? There’s only one way to find out.

Overall, though, this is very exciting. As Kris Rusch says, I’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I definitely feel that good things are coming my way.

From the Ice Incarnate is now available from Amazon

My third indie published short story, “From the Ice Incarnate,” is now available for $.99 on Amazon. You can read it on the Kindle, of course, but if you don’t have one then Amazon has free plugins for just about every device imaginable.

If you haven’t read any of my other stories yet, I would recommend starting with this one. It won first place in the 2009 Mayhew Short Story contest at BYU, and is probably one of the better pieces of my writing. It’s also taken from a scene in my novel Genesis Earth, which is currently a quarter finalist for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I’ve also reformatted both of my other stories, “Memoirs of a Snowflake” and “Decision LZ1527,” improving the covers and making them look more professional overall. I also redid the cover for “Decision LZ1527,” changing the font and enlarging the image to make it look crisper.

I’ve already blogged pretty extensively about the epublishing process in the last post, but I’ll say something about it here. Putting stuff up on Amazon is not that hard, but making it look professional can be a little tricky. In the future, I think I’m going to use the process outlined below:

Step One: Write the book in Open Office. Save manuscript as an open document text.

Step Two: Using Open Office, set the font to Times New Roman size 12, bold titles and chapter headings, replace underlining with italics, spacing to 1.5 lines, add in special characters for scene breaks (if needed), etc. Save as an html file.

Step Three: Using The Gimp, create a cover image and export as a 600×900 jpeg.

Step Four: Using a WYSIWYG html editor, adjust formatting as needed, add anchor tags for the table of contents (if needed), etc. Save as html.

Step Five: Using an ebook creator program such as Mobipocket, combine finalized html file with cover image and all other interior content. Edit metadata, create table of contents (if needed), etc. Export as .prc or epub.

That’s basically the process I used for “From the Ice Incarnate,” except I uploaded the .doc file straight to Amazon and then downloaded their html conversion of it. Kind of an ad hoc way of doing things, but hey it worked.

This will probably be my last short story for a while. My reason for putting them out was mostly to learn on them, and I have learned a TON.

My next epublishing project will probably be a full length book, either one of my novels, or an ebook combining my blogs and journals from the summer of 2008, when I went on the BYU Jordan study abroad. I want to figure out how to do a table of contents and add interior images, and that seems like the best project to learn it on. Plus, I’ve always wanted to turn that material into a book.

That probably won’t come out for a while, though. In the meantime, feel free to check out my other stories! I hope you enjoy them; I appreciate everyone who reads my work, and do my best to write stories that are worth reading. And if you feel so inclined, post a review or blog about it. Every little bit helps!

A word about ebook formatting

So it turns out that ebook formatting is a lot harder than I’d thought. I was hoping to finish chapter 13 in ITND tonight, but I’ve spent the whole #$@! time just trying to get “From the Ice Incarnate” up on Amazon.

Fortunately, I think I have a much better idea of what I’m doing now.

For “Memoirs of a Snowflake” and “Decision LZ1527,” I just uploaded the .doc file and had Amazon reformat it automatically. The stories were short and simple enough that it worked rather well.

Then I decided I wanted to put the cover in the body of the ebook, and foolishly thought I’d just put it on the first page of the .doc file I was uploading. Long story short, I discovered that that’s not a good idea–the ereader doesn’t read it as a cover, and it looks like crap.

Also, I discovered that the ideal size for an ebook cover is 600×900 pixels (for a standard 2:3 aspect ratio). From now on, all the covers I upload will be 600×900.

So then, when I uploaded “From the Ice Incarnate,” I kept noticing these weird indenting problems in the preview. No matter what I did to change the .doc file, it wouldn’t go away. Out of frustration, I downloaded the html file that Amazon had formatted it into and noticed these weird <div> tags popping up on short, one line paragraphs where they should have been <p> tags. Don’t ask me how they got there, but they were a pain to fix.

So then, I tried uploading the modified html file, and found to my great joy that the problem had been fixed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any way to put in the cover–and the cover for “From the Ice Incarnate” is REALLY awesome.

Frustrated but undaunted, I turned to Mobipocket Creator, an open source ebook creating program. I’d tried playing with it before, but found it complicated and confusing. Well, now that I knew what I wanted it to do, it wasn’t hard at all to figure out how to make it work.

First, I created a new project in its own designated folder. Then, I added the corrected html file to the “publication files” page. Where it asked for a cover image, I uploaded the 600×900 jpeg (I do all my editting in The Gimp, in a much larger .xcf file). Then, I filled in the metadata, such as book description, suggested cover price, etc.

When I was finished, I hit “build,” and voila! A slick looking .prc ebook file that looked EXACTLY how I wanted it to.

I uploaded it to Amazon, and it looked great in the preview. I’m not sure what it’ll look like in the finished product yet, since it takes 24 hours to upload, but I fixed “Decision LZ1527” as well. Once I knew what I was doing, it took maybe five minutes to create the ebook on Mobipocket Creator.

So here’s what I’m going to do from now on. I’m going to bypass the whole .doc thing altogether (since I use Open Office, not MS Word) and go straight from .odt to .html using a WYSIWYG html editor. For the cover, I’ll use The Gimp, with the project files as .xcf and the finished images as 600×900 .jpegs. I’ll combine it all in Mobipocket Creator, and upload the .prc ebook file to Amazon / Pubit / Smashwords / wherever.

Sound daunting? (Charlie, I’m talking to you, hehe) It’s actually a TON of fun, once you get the hang of it. And let me tell you, when I saw the finished product, it was awesome. Totally worth it.

Trouble is, I haven’t had any time to work on my novel, which is frustrating, because I’m working an 8 to 5 job now. It’s temporary, which is nice for a full time artist/creator like me, but man, I’m going to miss all the free time I used to have. I want to finish ITND before the end of the month, but I’ve still got a long ways to go.

In the meantime, let me give you a sneak peek on my next ebook. It’s a short story based on an excerpt from Genesis Earth, which won first place in the 2009 Mayhew short story contest at BYU. Of the stuff I’ve posted up to Amazon so far, I think this one is far and away the best.

Here’s the cover:

Pretty cool, eh? I ripped the font from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. The image is from NASA, taken by the Hubble space telescope.

So anyways, that’s what’s going on with my ebook venture. I’m kind of glad I haven’t done much to publicize the other stories, because they need a lot of work. If you bought one already, don’t worry; the stories haven’t changed at all, just the formatting. I’m not sure if you can re-download those once you’ve bought them, but if you want one of the new ones, let me know and I’ll figure it out.

And if I’m missing something in terms of html or ebook formatting, please let me know. I’m not quite hopeless, but I’m still horribly ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff. Any suggestions (especially for a good WYSIWYG editor) would me much appreciated.

Just another update

A few updates, in case you’re interested in what’s going on with me:

I’m getting ready to post a new story to Amazon. This is going to be the one that won first place in the 2009 Mayhew short story contest at BYU. It’s also an excerpt for Genesis Earth, which is currently in the quarter finals for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. More news on that as it comes out.

Into the Nebulous Deep is coming along. Surprisingly, the rough draft follows a very tight, coherent plot structure. At this stage, every other novel I’ve written is usually all over the place. This one looks like it’s going to be twenty chapters, with four parts of five chapters each.

Right now, I’m in the middle of chapter 13. I was hoping to finish it this week, but my sister was in town this weekend, so I spent most of my time with her instead. Not that that’s a problem; I can probably catch up tomorrow. I’m hoping to finish part III before the end of next week.

It’s going to be tough, though, because I’m starting a new temp job on Monday. It’s 40 hours per week at $9, which is pretty sweet, especially since my tax return is basically going to cover all my expenses this month. Hooray for cheap Utah summers! The full time work is going to be tough on the writing, though.

Which brings me to my last update: the guys at Pioneer Book called me back today and set up a job interview on Tuesday! Hooray! I’m totally stoked–this bookstore job would be awesome. I might even postpone my TEFL plans for a while if I get the job. It probably won’t be full time or pay much more than minimum wage, but dude, it’s a bookstore. Plus, part time work is perfect for writing. As long as I have enough to get by, I’ll be happy.

And to close, let me leave you with this awesome trailer my brother in law shared with me. I haven’t seen this movie, but it looks absolutely freaking awesome–like the kind of film my old roommate Steve Dethloff would make.

Man, Steve and I would make an awesome duo in a post-apocalyptic world. I should move to Dallas just so we can be ready to team up when it happens. If they made a movie of our exploits together, it would totally be just like this. Lost Vegas…

Steve, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that there’s no one I’d rather be killing zombies with than you.

Q1 report, 2011

So in terms of writing, this was a pretty decent quarter. Nothing too prolific, but definitely making progress on my writing goals for 2011, which include:

1) finish at least two polished novels,
2) finish at least three new rough drafts,
3) start at least four major new projects.

The spike in the graph from the beginning of the month is from the final revision of Bringing Stella Home, which was pretty much just a final polish. After that was finished, I had a little difficulty picking up the next project, but once I did, I was able to be pretty consistent.

In mid-January, I picked up Worlds Away from Home and worked on that until the beginning of March. This was a pretty huge overhaul, especially for the end, but it still needs a lot of work. Basically, this draft was just to get it to the point where I could send it out to my first readers without being eternally ashamed.

After finishing WAFH 2.1 in the beginning of March, I launched right back into the sequel for BSH, Into the Nebulous Deep. I figured it would be good to have the sequel in hand, in case I decided to go indie with BSH, as well as to practice writing sequels.

All throughout March, the writing was surprisingly steady, but recently things have kind of gone off kilter. Maybe it’s all the increased distractions (job interviews, EPIK application, the TEFL course, other random crap), or maybe it’s just that I’ve become less disciplined, but I don’t feel like I’ve been writing very consistently in the last little while. And the graph doesn’t really show that, because I recently started a few other projects which have sort of taken the place of ITND.

The first of these is currently untitled, but it takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of our world which I’ve code named “The Blight.” I don’t want to say much about it, but it’s REALLY REALLY REALLY cool…trust me. Think lone man, wandering the ruins of civilization two hundred years after its fall, trying to make a life for himself when everyone else around him dies at a ridiculously early age because of this blight that has swept across all of humanity.

I’m having a TON of fun building this world, and the story is practically writing itself. In the interest of finishing what I start, though, I’m going to sideline it until ITND is completely finished (which should be by the end of April, inshallah…).

The other project is a novella version of BSH, basically taking just Stella’s viewpoints and telling the story of her capture and eventual ascension to the Hameji throne. This project shouldn’t be too hard–basically, I’m just frankensteining it from BSH, with a few tweaks. My main reason for writing it is to have a novella-length work that I can release as an ebook, possibly to generate interest in Bringing Stella Home.

Speaking of which, in March I released a couple of short stories as ebooks on Amazon. It’s a little early to gauge how well they’re doing, but I’m learning a lot from the experience, and the sales are gradually trickling in. Once I release a few more works and start promoting them, I expect the sales will grow.

So in the last three months, I’ve finished one polished novel (Bringing Stella Home), started two new projects (Sholpan and untitled (the blight)), and made progress on polishing Worlds Away from Home. I wrote / revised through 170k words, about 30k to 50k of which were all new material. I also ventured into indie publishing and released two short stories on Amazon, which are earning me a buck or two each week.

Overall, it hasn’t been as prolific as other quarters, but it’s not been too bad either. Now to finish ITND and make some progress on that freaking nashostomo…

Decision LZ1527 is now live

My second indie published short story, “Decision LZ1527,” is now available for $.99 from Amazon. This is the same story that was published in the December 2009 issue of Leading Edge. I’ve also included a short author’s note at the end, explaining the writing process from idea to publication.

As with “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” the epublishing process wasn’t that complicated. The story was short enough that I didn’t feel a need for a table of contents, and Amazon reformatted the uploaded .doc file without any problems.

The biggest difference with this one was that I contacted the artist from the December issue and bought the rights to use the art. It cost a bit, but not much more than what Leading Edge paid for the story, so overall I haven’t taken much of a loss.

I wrote “Decision LZ1527” back in 2006, when I was a sophomore in college trying to navigate the bizarre dating world of BYU. It’s about a boy trying to find the courage to ask out his secret crush, as told from the point of view of the little men inside his head, piloting him like some kind of spaceship.

So yeah, I hope you check it out and enjoy it! If you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon has a number of free apps that will allow you to read it on just about any platform (including your computer). And if you haven’t already picked up “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” you can get it for $.99 too.

I’ll do an update in a week or two about my indie publishing venture, but so far it’s been pretty fun! Hopefully, by putting out these stories, I’ll be able to share them with more people than would have read them otherwise. So thanks, and I hope you enjoy!

NaShoStoMo

So Dan Wells is taking a page from NaNoWriMo and starting his own writing thing for April, NaShoStoMo, aka National Short Story Month. The rules are as follows:

You must write 30 all new short stories between April 1st and April 30th.
Each story must have a distinct beginning, middle, and end.
Each story must be at least 200 words.
You may write more than one story per day to make up for lost days.

It seems like an awesome idea, and I’m going to try it. I’m not much of a short story writer, but I wish I were, because there are some really awesome short stories out there that I admire–like Endosymbiont, quite possibly the best singularity story that I have ever read (and available for free from Escape Pod). Novels and short stories are different arts, but they’re both forms of storytelling, so I figure that no matter what happens I’ll learn something from it.

I’m not sure how many of these stories will take place in universes that I’ve already built, but probably a good number of them will. I have a few characters from Bringing Stella Home that I would like to do little sketches on, possibly for a later novel, and some things I’d like to do in the worlds I’ve already created.

At the same time, though, I’ve got some crazy ideas for standalone stuff that I’d like to play with, like a crazy awesome dream I had last night that made me lie awake just thinking about it for almost an hour. It was insane...but I guess you had to be there.

In unrelated news, my writer friend Charlie got me a thing of sparkling grape juice, for me to open when I celebrate my first major publishing deal (though I suspect another motivation was to make me look like a wino while walking around on BYU campus).

Honestly, I was quite surprised–thanks! I’ll use it to christen my first yacht that I buy from my multimillion dollar first deal, hehe.

Oh, and in other totally unrelated news, my other writer friend Laura started a blog. So go check it out!

Memoirs of a Snowflake available on Amazon

I just released my first short story on the Kindle. “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” a whimsical short story about the life and times of a December snowflake, is available for $.99 on Amazon.

The publishing process was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Because this is a short story, I didn’t have to worry about formatting for a table of contents or other stuff. All I did was upload the .doc file, and Amazon automatically did the formatting.

Bryan and I did try to upload it as an html file, which failed miserably for reasons we don’t understand. Also, Amazon automatically generated the free sample for it, which is something I’d like to figure out how to control in the future.

So as far as practice goes, this story perhaps wasn’t the best one to learn on. However, it’s good to see how the publishing process works–and really, it’s not that hard. The hardest part was reading all the terms and conditions, which took maybe an hour. Everything else was just uploading files, filling in fields, and checking off boxes.

The cover art was fun. To make it, I took this image from Wikimedia Commons (where practically everything is in the public domain), photoshopped it with The Gimp (“gimped” it?), and added the lettering. Voila! I don’t know if it’s my best work, but for a short story, I think it’s decent.

$.99 is the lowest that Amazon will allow me to price it. For every sale, I make about $.35, and Amazon starts transferring money to my account after I earn $10. You can download it to your Kindle device, or you can read it on your computer with Amazon’s Kindle for PC program (where you can also read a two paragraph free sample, heh).

So far, I’ve made two sales and gotten one review–a pretty good one, too! I posted the story on Facebook and Chuck has blogged about it, but that hasn’t translated into sales yet. But after reading this, you all are going to go out and buy it, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?? Hehe, just kidding.

Next week, I’ll probably release “Decision LZ1527,” after I figure out the cover art. It’s a little more complicated, because I wanted to buy the art that was in the magazine in which it was originally published. But I’ve got that squared away, now just tweaking it. And I’ll probably add an author’s note at the end, too.

This is exciting stuff! I’m interested to see how the stories take off. For those of my writer friends who are thinking of doing something like this for their own stuff, I’ll be sure to let you know how they do!

A few additional thoughts

So, after the last post on my ebook venture, I have a few thoughts:

I haven’t yet decided to go all out indie, so don’t think that I am. All I’m doing right now is putting out a couple of my short stories, mostly so I can learn hands-on how the epublishing process works (and make all my mistakes with something that isn’t a full-length novel).

I write mostly space opera and science fiction adventure, and those are apparently selling pretty well. I don’t know about horror or epic fantasy, so to all you horror / epic fantasy friends of mine, realize that my experience might not be your experience.

After looking into DBAs, LLCs, business licenses, and taxes, I’ve decided not to register as a business or set up a separate account for this venture–at least, not until I sell more than $500, which from what I understand is when the IRS requires Amazon to start reporting earnings (I could be wrong; I’m not a lawyer). Again, I’m not doing this for the money right now, more for the experience and to learn how to do it.

Why, then, am I putting together a formal business plan? Well, it’s more of a self-discipline thing; as a writer, I am in the eyes of the world a self-employed owner of a small business, so I want to discipline myself so that I can be successful as such.

And honestly, I think this is very exciting. I’ve found, over the past year, that I’m the kind of guy who would rather work for himself or as an independent contractor than work for a corporation and take a salary–firstly, because I believe that the corporate paradigm is fundamentally evil, and second, because I enjoy the independence, the control over my livelihood, and the adventure of being an entrepreneur.

Anyhow, my CS friend Bryan is going to help me figure out how to publish on Kindle this Tuesday, so my short story “Memoirs of a Snowflake” will probably go live that afternoon. As for “Decision LZ1527,” I’m probably going to spend some money on the cover art, which means figuring out contracts, payments, pricing, etc. My my goal is to put it out sometime in April, though, and between now and then, I might put up something else. So keep an eye out!

Business Plan for an ebook venture

Alright, after watching the market and giving it some considerable thought, I’ve decided to venture into indie publishing, if only to test the waters. I’ll release a couple of short stories first, mostly to learn how to format and release an ebook, and from there I’ll move on to other work.

I spent this afternoon drafting a business plan for the venture, using the resources available at the SBA website (thanks, Jerle). Here’s what I have thus far:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mission Statement: To tell cool stories and have fun doing it
Projected Start Date: 31 March 2011
Founder and sole owner: Joseph M. Vasicek
Employees: 1 (services to be contracted on a freelance basis)
Location: Provo, UT (subject to change)
Product: Short stories, novels, and novellas

1) Summary of Growth

As the business has not yet been launched, there is no growth to report.

2) Future Plans

Stage One: Initial Release

In this stage, I will prepare and release two short stories, “Decision LZ1527” (previously published in issue 58 of The Leading Edge) and “Memoirs of a Snowflake” (previously unpublished) as ebooks on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

The goals for this initial venture are to:
1) learn how to properly format and release an ebook,
2) gain familiarity with the ebook publishing system, and
3) gauge a general estimate of ebook costs and profits.

Stage Two: Initial Novel/Novella Release

At least 3 months after releasing “Decision LZ1527” and “Memoirs of a Snowflake,” I plan on releasing Sholpan, a novella based on the novel Bringing Stella Home. By doing so, I hope to:
1) learn how to properly outsource editing and cover art,
2) gauge the earnings potential for my novels, and
3) generate an audience for other books in the Gaia Nova series.

After releasing Sholpan, I will most likely wait for a few months to see what happens, submitting my other novels to traditional publishers in the meanwhile. If sales of my ebooks exceed expectations, I will consider moving to the next stage and fully implementing this business plan.

Stage Three: Full Ebook Release

If success in the previous stages justifies it, I will release my completed novels as ebooks, starting either sometime in July/August 2011 or after September 2012 (depending on how well my other works do, according to a metric which has yet to be determined). Currently, these consist of Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home, though Worlds Away from Home should be nearing the final phases of revision.

My business goals from here out are the following:
1) produce and release two novels each year (minimum of one),
2) consistently expand my audience through social networking,
3) obtain an agent to handle foreign/subsidiary rights,
4) obtain a print deal in order to build career prestige, and
5) earn enough to support myself entirely off of my writing.

If the works released in stage two do not sell well enough to justify moving on to stage three, I will continue to make them available as ebooks but will postpone releasing my novels until either my other works begin to sell well, or independent publishing becomes the generally accepted path for new writers.

Mainly, I just want to experiment with ebooks and figure out how they work. Since the initial costs are so low, my initial goal is not to make a lot of money, but to learn how to format and release an ebook. I was a little uneasy doing that with my novels, but I figure it wouldn’t hurt to practice on my short stories (all two of them).

So yeah, that’s the date: March 31st, 2011. I’ll release “Decision LZ1527” for $.99, and “Memoirs of a Snowflake” for $.50 or so (since it’s flash fiction). I’m not sure how well it will sell, but I hope that all of you reading this right now go and buy it!!!1!! (that includes you, Mom) Hehe, just kidding. ;P

But seriously, I’ll keep you guys updated closely on how the venture goes. A lot of ebook authors are very transparent with their numbers, and I plan to be no different. And if you have any feedback on the business plan, please let me know. I’m kind of new to this sort of thing, and while it’s surprisingly fun, I’m sure I’ll make a TON of mistakes. Your help would be appreciated!