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Category: books

  • Choosing a Print on Demand service (Second Part)

    In the first part of my post, I started recounting about the Print-On-Demand services that I researched to self-publish my first fantasy novel “The Last Families”. I found many roadblocks on KDP, IngramSpark, and BookBaby. It was time to consider others.

    Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

    Draft2Digital was my next option. I’ve already been getting newsletters from them and they had good reviews online. I thought this service was meant to be the one. Like BookBaby, Draft2Digital uses PayPal and Payoneer to send payments to authors. PayPal is still an issue for me, since this payment gateway doesn’t completely work in Bolivia (you can’t connect it to a bank account), but you can still receive payments in your PayPal account and use them as available credits for other future online payments. Payoneer, on the other hand, is a better solution for me. I can actually cash out that money with it. Given this payment advantage, I was already excited with Draft2Digital and I thought I had found the one. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice that it was only for ebooks. Print-on- Demand was still on beta and not quite available yet to all their customers. Well, time to go to the next one.

    LuLu or Blurb. Those two were the final ones on my list.

    Weird enough, there weren’t many reviews on Blurb. I had found some comments online that they didn’t get any cut on profits, but other sources said they did. Of course, I planned writing their support to clarify about the profit issue, but in the meantime I had been exploring their platform a bit more. They asked you to download a software on your computer to work with your manuscript and convert it to a printable file. That was the first barrier. I never got their software to work on my computer, and yes, I’m computer savvy. I wrote to their support service and followed the steps they provided but nop, the software didn’t work. I was still giving them a chance and trying to make the software work when I decided to look at their website shop. All these Print-on-Demand services offer you to sell your book on their web shops, besides the big distribution partners (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) But Blurb is mainly focused on books with visuals/photos- I’ve heard their software does wonders for books with photos for example. Unfortunately, their website shop is not the place where I want my Fantasy novel to be listed. They do list fiction, but it is not their focus and I don’t see any advantage of being listed with them. I doubt any bookshop or small library will look into Blurb’s website for fiction. It is sad, but true at this point. A couple of days later, I found the final barrier when I dug more into their shipping policies, they ship to North America and the EU, but not Bolivia. Sorry, bye Blurb.

    Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

    That made me pass to Lulu. And although they pay with PayPal, not Payoneer, it was the option that didn’t present any other harsh barriers. They get 20% of profits. I had to say okay. They ship worldwide. Their website bookshop is not that bad. Their platform is quite easy to follow. They distribute to Amazon and the others. And although, I might only see earnings in the form of PayPal Credits, I guess that is acceptable for the moment. They get you a free ISBN, so that is always good. Therefore, Lulu is the chosen one for the moment. (You don’t have to stick with one of these services, you can always cancel a service with them and work with another in the future).

    I’m also happy to say that I have a second alternative for issues with shipping to Bolivia, using Aeropost. I know since the book is in English, the main book’s market is abroad and not my country, but I still want to have the option to get them to Bolivia. I still want to order around a half-dozen books for friends and family over here. Amazon has been sending things to Bolivia with DHL. And it is the biggest mistake ever. I even called Amazon support about this. I’m not going to go in detail in this post, but aside from what you are charged for Shipping & Handling when you buy at Amazon’s website, you pay a lot of money here to DHL (more than what you paid for the order) for their “additional handling”. DHL Bolivia has these “minimum amounts” they charge for handling your package, even if the product was worth only U$5. Short story, Aeropost is a service for countries like Bolivia and others in Latin America. They give you an address in the US and you ship your orders there. Then they consolidate the packages and charge you for shipping and handling to Bolivia. It is not cheap but their fee is lower compared to the one from DHL. To give you a specific example, DHL charges a minimum of U$45 for handling, aside from custom taxes, for any item that is worth at least $1, in addition to the U$35 you paid for “shipping and handling” in Amazon’s website. It really doesn’t make any sense to me. It is too expensive. You are paying over U$95 (with taxes) to buy a U$10 book. Aeropost charges you shipping (U$17), customs taxes, and $5 for handling. In total, it is less than a third part of DHL’s fees in Bolivia. Unfortunately, those are some issues of living in a third-world country.

    Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels.com

    I know this post had a little bit of everything. And most of you might not have these issues at all. But it is still good to know what happens with other authors out there. My biggest hope is that this post reaches international authors who might be living in countries where these things are common and that my experience helps you a bit. At least to encourage to keep going on.

    My book cover should be ready soon. That is another story for another post. Once it is done, I’ll order my first Lulu copy for approval. So excited about this 🙂

  • Choosing a Print on Demand service

    In this path to self-publishing my first fantasy novel “The Last Families”, I’ve encountered many blocks. There are many services out there to Print-on-Demand, but they are mostly suitable for authors in the US and Canada. I live in Bolivia and that makes things a bit complicated. I don’t think I’m the only author facing these issues so probably this post is going to be helpful to authors in other countries that are not part of North America or the EU (which also has some advantages).

    I started with Amazon’s KDP. Of course being on Amazon is important and I’m planning two formats: a printed paperback and ebook. As soon as I started considering self-publishing, KDP entered my radar. I read all Amazon’s terms and agreements and fount out soon that I would be surrendering to them around 70% profits. Half of that is related to taxes since my country doesn’t have any agreement with the US regarding those. I’m still reviewing all this information to see what options and alternatives I have. Although I didn’t choose KDP for other reasons, soon explained, I still want to sell on Amazon. Therefore, I guess I still have to have this tax thing figured it out.

    Photo by Sagar Soneji on Pexels.com

    The main reason why I didn’t chose KDP is because they pay by check. And yes, this is the only alternative they offer for international authors. I have many issues with that. First, if a check is sent by regular mail to Bolivia, then there are at least 80% chances that it won’t get here. The Mail in Bolivia is a disaster, and at this point, I’m not even sure if it is working with the pandemic. Before Covid, it sort of worked, but it took around four or more months for your correspondence to get to you. Small envelops, postcards, don’t always arrive, they simply get lost. At this moment, I believe the Mail company is heading towards bankruptcy, and as far as I know, mail hasn’t gotten here since 2019. But even if the Mail company started to work and the check managed to get here, there is another issue. I called my bank and asked how much is the fee to cash an international check. They provided the following example: If your check is U$100, the bank has a minimum of U$35 fee for international checks and 15% on the total, so U$50 will be deducted for a U$100 check (which is also the minimum that Amazon pays). That is half of the earnings. No way, I’m going this route.

    Photo by Blue Bird on Pexels.com

    Then I had a quick passage through IngramSpark and quickly found a roadblock when I filled my account and billing details and got a message that more or less said, “Your country doesn’t support digital signatures so we are not able to provide our services at this point.” It was time to move to the next one.

    The next in my list was BookBaby. I always thought it looked quite decent. They distribute to Amazon and other major channels and besides, their online shop, BookShop, is really a good place to have your title listed, even small libraries and bookshops check their site to order some books. From a previous research, I already knew that I needed to buy an upfront plan to publish with them. It seemed to be around U$349 in a quick search. Their main advantage was that they wouldn’t take any profits on books sold on their site or to distributors. After considering this, I decided that it was worth making the investment. However, it was never meant to be only U$349. I navigated all ways on their platform and even called their support service to make sure I was doing things right. I turns out that I needed an initial order of 25 books. There was no way to get a lower quantity, and with shipping to Bolivia, and adding other things like ISBN (which they charge $39), I was soon close to U$1000 before checkout. Nop, discarded.

    And since this story is a bit long, and to avoid getting you bored, I’m going to continue in a next post where I still consider a couple of options more before I get to the final one. See you in a next post in a few days.

  • The book’s website

    I’m continuing on this path to publishing my first fantasy novel. I hope the process can benefit somebody out there. The whole process was delayed a bit due to another personal project I was working on. But I’m glad to announce that I’m back and ready to focus on a very important goal for me, self-publishing my first book. As I started to gather all the info that I would need for a cover, I realized that my fantasy novel would benefit from its own website, which will be mentioned in the back cover’s footer and also inside the book.

    A website for a book can be a little bit tricky. What should you include in that book? A preface, some chapters, reviews? I’m still in the process of figuring that out. But I soon realized that the book would need some visual material aside from the book cover. Given that “The Last families” is a fantasy novel, I thought it would be a good idea to have some sketches/illustrations of my characters. I’m not really sure if this would work for another genre, but I get the feeling that it works well for a fantasy audience. Therefore, I got a friend, Pablo Rico to help me with the illustrations.

    I considered adding those illustrations inside the book (although I never envisioned my book with illustrations), but since an e-book doesn’t support illustrations in color, it won’t make much sense to have then inside the novel’s content (my characters heavily rely on colorful characteristics). Therefore, the illustrations will be mainly used in the book’s website (currently being built) and promotion on social media when I’m ready to launch the book.

    I thought I would share with you some of the process that Pablo shared with me when creating one of the villains in the story, Ian (please check his Instagram ,he is really a brilliant artist) I loved seeing my character becoming alive.

    This is Ian. He is one of the villains, if not “the villain” in “The Last Families”. He is a native of Gambir (the island where the story takes place) and here is an extract of his character description:

    Only the dark-haired man stepped down from his horse. His short black hair was cut into a square outline around his face. Brown eyes, tanned skin, long nose, and almost purple lips distinguished his face. He was tall and muscular. A long brown fur vest stretched down to his calves. Completing his outfit, he wore a black inner vest and dark fabric pants.

    He is the leader. Mandely knew. And even if he wasn’t, he exerted authority among the other people, remaining one step in front of the others…

    The last families

    I’m hoping to have more information about my book’s website in a next post and share more about the process itself.

    What do you think about Ian? Wanting to know more about him?

  • About the Last Families

    “The Last Families” is the title that I decided to give my fantasy novel. This is the first piece of fantasy I have ever tried to write. Since I didn’t feel confident to do the research required to place my story in a specific location, I decided to give the fantasy genre a shot. I soon realized that I felt comfortable with creating my own world.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    After doing some research, my story falls in the category of “high-fantasy”. The definition of high fantasy, according to Wikipedia is:

    High fantasy is set in an alternative, fictional (“secondary”) world, rather than the “real” or “primary” world.[2] This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set in earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements.

    After giving the warning of being high-fantasy, let me tell a bit more about my story:

    The last continent left on earth is perishing. Escaping through the earth’s core, the last families have reached Gambir. The island’s scorching hot sun and shores that can suck boats into a deep abyss are only some minor dangers compared to its inhabitants.

    Characterized by purple, white, green, and red hair and unmistakable eye colors, each family has unique physiologies. Ninfire women can not only get pregnant in their eighties but also fly. Drontas twins die when their sibling does in spite of the family’s unnatural force. The green family, the Kaptarish, can burn anything they touch with their hands while the Verbaren– composed of only cousins since women can only have one child -used to read minds. 

    The apparent leader of Gambir, Ian, has set eyes on Yarisha Verbaren – the only mind-reader of the Verbaren family. But the young girl has developed feelings for Malakay, the most arrogant sibling in the Ninfire family. She knows the young man’s mother and the matriarch of the Ninfires, Mandely, will never consent to this relationship since she considers the Verbaren family to be inferior. 

    Meanwhile, trying to seek refuge and build a good relationship with the island’s inhabitants, Marquesh, the patriarch of the Drontas family will need to leave his wife in order to protect his children. He will get help from Palista, the old Kaptarish family matriarch. What he doesn’t know is that the old woman hides a secret and that she must hurry to pass her leadership skills to her grandson. 

    Soon these families will find out that skin color could determine their survival. In their quest to escape, they will uncover who is really in charge in Gambir, and learn not only from this island, but also from their inner personal strengths. 

    As you probably noticed, this summary has been extracted from my query letter. It is hard to summarize the story but I’m happy to talk a bit more about it in other posts.

    Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

    Since I decided on self-publishing, I’m planning to set up a website for the book. A friend of mine is helping with some illustrations and they are looking fantastic so far. I’m looking forward to showing them in a next post as I delve myself into this process of self-publishing. I hope that my experience in this process will be somehow helpful to others.

    What do you think of the premise of my fantasy story? I would like to hear some impressions

  • Self-publishing time

    I always told myself that I would explore the different approaches to publishing. The first one, traditional publishing, seemed to be the desired one since you imagine a literary agent guiding you in these waters of publishing. You imagine them taking care of all the logistics that is involved in publishing your book so you can focus in more writing. But as I already knew, nailing a literary agent, and then a publishing house, is not easy at all. I’ve even heard that I would waste my time searching for an agent. But since I was in no hurry to publish, I decided I would try pitching agents first. And I have done it in the past 8 months. I’ve pitched to many agents. Some of them were polite to reply and say “thanks but no thanks” and others didn’t even reply. I must admit that I was sort of expecting this outcome given how difficult I’ve heard is to call the attention of a literary agent. But I still wanted to give a try.

    Now, I’m ready to move on to plan B. Self-publishing.

    Photo by Talha R on Pexels.com

    I wasn’t that scared of the logistics of self-publishing. I knew I could find my way around and hire help where I needed, but I was a bit scared of the time it would take to figure all this out and the time it would involve managing all the process. But at this point, I have the feeling that I have to get my fantasy novel “The Last Families” out there. I’ve spent a couple of years on it and it deserves to be out there. It is a personal challenge.

    I’ve taken on self-publishing planning now, wanting to go slowly step by step. Time is my constraint. I have a good day job, and aside from that job, I’m organizing a tech online event, I attend two Public Speaking clubs, one reading club, and try to stay as physically active as possible. But publishing this book is important and I have to find it time. Moreover, it is time to stop wishing some literary agent will fall from the sky to help with all the hassle 🙂

    Photo by OVAN on Pexels.com

    Therefore, I’ve started gathering information. I’ve already decided I want both the ebook version and the printed version. Given that, there is a lot to do on the matter of formatting the book, getting a cover designed, etc. I’ve already began researching Print On demand services and I’ve already discarded a couple of them. Given that I’m in Bolivia, some of these services don’t deal with authors from outside the US, or as I was told by IngramSpark “digital signature is not supported in your country”. Well….

    On the good side, I’m positive on the design and promotion part. I think I know good people that can help me with that.

    Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

    As I post on this Blog more about the process, I will probably start changing its look, given that the domain name already has my author name, and this will probably become my Author website.

    I’ll start talking a bit more about my fantasy story in next posts so that you can hear what is it about. I’m waiting first on some visual materials to go with this.

    In the meantime, if anybody has good references or experiences with the Print on demand options, I would deeply appreciate to hear from you. Wish me good luck in this process. 🙂

  • The querying process: trust your instincts

    As I submerge myself in this world of querying agents and receiving rejections, I started to take it as part of the common writing process. I no longer feel bad for the rejections coming from literary agent’s, in fact, I think they are making me stronger and more resilient.

    Photo by Stas Knop on Pexels.com

    In the meantime, I’ve also started to experiment with different query letters, manuscript summaries, and even decided to change my first chapter. I feel happy on the latter. I was never happy with having a prologue. For some reason, I thought my story really needed that prologue. However, once I decided to challenge this idea, I put my hands on re-writing the first chapter, integrating in it the prologue. It worked so well that I couldn’t believe it! I regretted sending queries to agents that had to go through my prologue (when they requested the first chapters or pages in the query letter). But well…sigh… one learns from these mistakes. It is not like I’m an expert or a published author.

    I also took on revamping my query letter and summary – for those that request it. From the beginning, I knew they weren’t the best possible and I attributed this to my story being so complex that I couldn’t describe it in a couple of paragraphs, but I later discovered they were totally improvable and I twitched them a bit until I felt prouder of them.

    Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

    I’m still going through my list of agents I want to query to. I’m not doing them all at once, neither one by one. But if the rejection trend is here to stay, then I’ll start pondering about self-publishing, which is not that bad according to what I heard. My only worry is that traditional publishing helps you get inside bookshops which is what I always wanted. It is not that I don’t trust the digital channels, and don’t see the potential in it, but there is a sweet spot in my heart where I want to see my book in a shelf in a bookshop. Who knows how things turn around. I’ve witnessed quite amazing events happening in my life.

    Photo by Janko Ferlic on Pexels.com

    In the meantime, if anybody is out there in the process of querying, writing query letters, preparing summaries, trust your instincts and make sure you are really proud of them.

  • Writing after editing/copywriting

    I decided to give it a go to professional editing of my manuscript. After getting a good hunch on a video from this editor, I paid for it and waited an external/unknown person to finally take a look at my manuscript. I wasn’t expecting much as I knew I had picked a considerable affordable service. I thought it would be mostly about grammar, spelling, punctuation, verb tenses, sentence structure, word choices etc. The type of editing that I worried most about since English is not my first language. But I was surprised to get a very detailed feedback about the story itself.

    The feedback included very good points about plot holes that I hadn’t thought about. Twists in the story that didn’t make much sense or that could be better explained. I absolutely loved that part. My fantasy story has many characters in it, so having someone deeply connecting all characters’ reasons and subplots was great. She was able to find small details of parts of the story I had completely forgot or contradicted. I loved this copywriting part more than the editing one. I came to understand that this is actually called developmental editing which involves checking story inconsistencies, discrepancies, factual errors, etc.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    I got great feedback from character development which actually surprised me. In a previous attempt with a first manuscript of a different story, my weakest point was character development. That story is on standby as it needs lots of rewriting. But most of the feedback that I got from the few beta readers, back in those days, was that characters didn’t feel multidimensional and there was no evolvement in their personalities, no growth. That really caught my attention, and when I started writing this new manuscript, I focused on writing good characters. It paid off, and I’m truly happy for it. It made the whole process feel that it had potential.

    I still have to work fixing some parts of the story but it doesn’t feel like an impossible job right now. It feels very tangible and I’m already in one-fourth of the total manuscript length of this new round of revision, and it is only been a week since I started. I feel encouraged but mostly proud of my fictional characters.

    Photo by Belle Co on Pexels.com

  • Writing in confinement

    I haven’t written in my Blog in while, as always. I wanted to focus any writing effort to working on my manuscript. I finally finished doing my second round of editing review, and now I don’t feel guilty to swift my attention to other type of writing.

    From all the bad things that this confinement has brought to our lives, there is one that has been positive for me. I have been able to find the time and discipline to finish editing my manuscript. I already had a plan before the confinement. I was trying to work at least one hour per day on editing. However, I must confess there were many days when I wouldn’t work since I would be absorbed by time, work, and other activities. The quarantine in my country has pushed me to be more responsible with my editing, but more than anything, I have to be honest I felt afraid.

    Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

    This pandemic has brought fear in general to our lives and nobody knows how our future will be. I wanted to have at least this goal finished in my life. It has been one week since I’ve finished editing. There is still a lot to do with the manuscript. I have one dear friend helping me with her expert editing eye. I’ll be also finding other people to beta read it and then start seeing options of how can I get this out there. But more than anything, finishing that goal has brought me a good sense of peace in my mind. I already have some other stories luring in my head and some good ideas for new manuscripts. I might explore them later. But for now, I’m giving myself some weeks to rest. Writing, editing and working has been a bit tough on my schedule and I urgently need that rest.

    Photo by Tomas Anunziata on Pexels.com

    This blog post didn’t have any specific topic in mind. I just wanted to get this update out there for anyone that might be reading my blog and register this point in my lifetime. If there is something good we can get from these hard times, it is the time to finish some personal goals.

    My country is in a very strict control and quarantine. Only people that are between 18 and 65 years old can go out and on a specific schedule depending on the last number of your ID. For example, I can only go out to the street on Mondays, from 7am to 12pm. Everybody must remain at home on afternoons and evenings, and weekends. If you are out of your home after 12 pm or if your ID doesn’t match the “ID of the day”, you get arrested, taken to jail, and you have to pay a fine. In other words, you can’t even go around the park or to take a walk around your neighborhood. Driving is, of course, completely banned, unless you have a special permit. Markets, supermarkets, and pharmacies are opened. Other business are not, including restaurants. There are no delivery services of any kind, only pharmacies. If you need to move to another location in the city on the day you are allowed to go out, you have to walk. There are no means of public transportation. It is quite tough, but needed. I’m crossing fingers, the situation will get better. It is a good time for writing but bad time for a writer’s spirit.

    Photo by Greg on Pexels.com

    And you, how is your writing dealing with these times?

  • People revising your manuscript

    My previous post was published more than 3 months ago. I remember telling myself: I won’t distract myself from any other kind of writing until I have my current first manuscript ready. I originally targeted to finish it by January and Look! we’re almost in the middle of the year. Sigh… It took longer than expected but it’s finally done.

    I initially had one friend volunteering to read it. She was an encouragement as I had told her it would be ready for January and having her asking about its status helped me push through the line and finish it. I soon found out I had two other volunteers to read it. That was exciting but it also made nervous. Extremely nervous. Why? Well, my mind was invaded by these thoughts:

    • What happens if the whole plot doesn’t make sense or is boring to death?
    • What happens if the whole idea of writing a book is not for me?
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    I’m an amateur writer and always have self-doubts about my writing skills. I’m usually not that insecure about life in general but writing is important to me and therefore I tend to feel vulnerable to people revising my manuscript. But then I gather myself, I exhale loudly and I think that this comes with the process. I have to learn to listen to feedback and trust in my work. I’m starting; there is a lot to learn. I have to accept the challenge and keep my faith that hard work makes the master.

    And you how do you feel when people start revising your manuscript?

  • One paragraph at a time in a never ending editing process

    I finally finished my first manuscript of a fantasy novel I’ve been working for almost a year. I learned many lessons the last time I worked with a manuscript, one is that finishing the first manuscript is only a small step in achieving a readable book. Numerous rounds of editing and revision come after this, and they can become endless. They are not the nicest part of writing a book, at least not for me.

    Last time I learned that before going into heavy editing, it is better to have a manuscript that you like, one where you feel satisfied with the story, the plot makes sense, you like the characters and they are likable. I learned that you have to be happy with what you wrote. You will need people who read your work, people who will criticize the plot, the characters and tell you how does the story feel. You will probably get lots of suggestions and you might need to rewrite chapters a couple of times more. Last time I understood there was no need to get into heavy editing if you were still working on the story development.

    Photo by Kaboompics .com on Pexels.com

    But for the first round of people who will read your work, you have to have a manuscript that is readable. This is the reason I felt I needed one round of revision for plot consistency, character check, setting description, and at least decent writing – a writing that will still be workable and can , of course, be improved.

    I’m not going for restructuring sentences, changing verbs, or more in depth editing, but it is still taking time. A lot of it. Somehow my first manuscript has managed to end with around 110 000 words or around 410 pages, and even though I’m doing a “quick revision” it still takes time. I still have a full time job and other activities, but I’m trying to find at least one hour a day to work on this. In an hour I usually deal with 5 or 8 pages, which means it is taking a lot of time. I told a friend I would be giving her the book for her critique around February, but it is already March and I haven’t reached the middle of the book with this “quick editing.”

    Photo by OVAN on Pexels.com

    However, the writing process works this way, there is no easy path. Each day I’m a couple of pages done. A couple of pages more than yesterday, one paragraph more than before. I feel like doing tiny steps, but at least the steps are being given. And If I’m a couple of paragraphs done each day, then I guess it will come a time when I will finish the manuscript. One paragraph at a time. After all, writing is about the process itself.

    And you how do you deal with rounds of editing?