Just Ginger

I recently watched a TV show that featured a scene with the main character and a dog. It was a very cute scene, but even though the story remained in that setting, the dog never appeared again. Basically, they brought the dog on stage, had him do his part, and then forgot about him. Well, they had him go into a kennel with no door. As if that was going to keep him there while people traipsed around his home.  As a dog owner, I was quite bothered by the fact the dog basically disappeared. Although people came and went in this house, the dog was never seen or heard again. References were made that the home owner had a dog, had even worked with a companion dog program, but the dog itself made no other appearance. The script writers forgot about the ripple effect. What’s that, you ask? Well, once something is introduced into the story, it has consequences that ripple out. Imagine a pebble tossed into a pond, it hits the water and then ever widening ripples reach out to t...

In one of my earlier blogs about taking the road to indie publishing, I said,   But as you’ll see later, I wasn’t finished with trying the small publisher route. I know, I know, you thought I was a committed indie publisher. And I am, but I still need to entice readers to buy my stories. To gain exposure for my contemporary romances, I decided to try and sell one of my short stories to an established digital publisher. Sure, I wouldn’t make much money, but my goal wasn’t to make money. My goal was to connect with readers.  The Search I used the same criteria I used when I first decided to submit to digital publishers. I already had a list of publishers from my earlier search, but it needed updating. Membership in Romance Writers of America (RWA) offers too many benefits to mention here, but one is their  publishers and agents overview that lists publishers who want romance stories.  I checked out the websites of publishers I thought would be ...

Guess what I found! Before I go any farther, I want to back up and share something I recently discovered while checking out e-books at the various distributors’ sites. Last month I said: Since I’ve read through all my contracts, I know that not every distributor will allow links in my e-book to be active. I make a Storyist copy that contains hot links (for iBooks) and one that doesn’t (for Nook, Kobo, and Kindle). I add this to the file name so I can tell them apart. Well, imagine my surprise as I was noodling around at Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble to discover that there are e-books for sale with hot links in them! Some of the e-books published by big publishing houses have only their web address in the e-book, while others provide links to the author, too. Some indie authors have their web info in there while some don’t. I’m sure there’s been some change to the contracts since I signed on last year, just check out the most current contracts which you’ll be reading a...

This is almost it! I have my publishing company set up, my Employer Identification Number (EIN), software that will export into EPUB and MOBI, accounts set up and approved at the various distributors, a bank account for all that money I’m going to make, a lovely cover image that can be embedded into Storyist, ISBNs purchased, a completed metadata sheet, and a squeaky clean manuscript formatted for export into   an EPUB or MOBI. Since I’ve read through all my contracts, I know that not every distributor will allow links in my e-book to be active. I make a Storyist copy that contains hot links (for iBooks)  and one that doesn’t (for Nook, Kobo, and Kindle). I add this info to the file name so I can tell them apart. (I'm using my published e-short story, Love to the Rescue file. My file name is Love2Res and then I just add the format to keep them straight. I also have a file for each distributor that contains the EPUB, MOBI, or pdf I've submitted to that distri...

You may or may not have noticed I didn’t post in December. For some reason, I enter the Twilight Zone around the holidays and before I know it, two months have slipped away. When I do get online, I shop or check delivery dates of what I’ve ordered. Apparently, blogging isn’t even on my radar.   The advent of the new year reminded me I needed to get back to writing this saga for those of you who are ready to take the leap into indie publishing. The last blog closed with the statement that before I actually export my project into an e-book, I take two more steps to ensure I have all my ducks in a line.  What could be left, you ask?  How about metadata and ISBN. Gathering the metadata.   Yep, you’ll need to plug in lots of information during the actual export process. Believe me, it’s easier to gather this information before the process begins than to stop every other click to locate and write the requested information. With a completed metadata form,...

Today, we’re going to take the final steps to create a manuscript ready for conversion to EPUB/MOBI. As you’ve probably figured out by now, the manuscripts I convert are written in Mac word processing software. Although I’m training myself to write in Storyist, I currently use iWorks ’09 Pages in the Mavericks OS. Although I write in Pages, I learned to clean up a manuscript in Microsoft Word (for Mac 2011) because my small publishers requested I use Word for submissions. As I do with any software, I learned enough about Word to do what I have to do. I’ve compiled a manuscript preparation checklist (available at www.gingerhanson.com on the For Writers page) for cleaning up a manuscript that was written or pasted into Word.  I go through each of these steps to ensure possible HTML stumbling blocks to a clean copy for e-book conversion are removed.  This is the first step in my publishing process. Even when I write the original story in Storyist, I still copy t...

Making an e-book is a multi-step process that starts with a completed manuscript and ends with an e-book distributors will accept into their stores. To reach the goal of producing an e-book acceptable to distributors, the manuscript needs to be converted from its word processing format into either an EPUB or MOBI format. There are several conversion software programs that will make this transformation. As any Internet search will reveal, the route taken to achieve that end varies widely.   In this blog, I’m going to describe the route I designed. To my delight, it’s gifted me with the successful distribution of five EPBU/MOBI books to four major retail outlets. And it all starts with clean copy.  Garbage in, garbage out, is a popular computer adage. It is especially true with e-book publishing. An e-book conversion program can only produce a well-formatted e-book if it starts with a well-formatted manuscript.  In this blog, I’ll discuss the process I use to p...