Review: The Super Spies and the Cat Lady Killer

 Lisa Orchard contacted me about writing a review for The Super Spies and the Cat Lady Killer, and I'm glad she did. It's a fun mystery read for kids, but even though it's peppered with pop culture references and lots of humor that will definitely appeal to the age group, Orchard knows how to be dark. Fear, suspense, thrills, jokes -- it's all here. I'm definitely not in Orchard's target audience, but I absolutely enjoyed this book.

The formatting and justification are perfect, always an important point, and I had to search hard to find a single mistake in the entire book. At no point does the story feel slow, and I wasn't even tempted to stop reading before the final page.

I very much enjoyed the main character Sarah, who is brave to a fault when she's seeking justice; Jackie, the fiercely loyal fashionista; and Lacey, the loveable klutz with a big heart...and two left feet. Together, they form the Super Spies, a group which soon includes a potential love interest for one of the girls. But they're not just playing detective -- they're playing a dangerous game that involves kidnappers, killers and secrets that go back three decades.

The plot is easy to follow, and overall the story is quite well-written. Early in the book, the Super Spies find themselves knee-deep in murder and in very real danger. There's more than one edge-of-your-seat scene, and thanks to Orchard's vivid writing I was frightened several times. Who will stop them first: the police...or the killers? 

The story unfolds beautifully, and I truly enjoyed the relationships and interactions in Sarah's life. The quick, close friendship she develops with Jackie feels very natural, particularly the quips they trade back and forth. The relationship she has with kid sister Lacey is equally poignant. I look forward to seeing how the characters develop in the next Super Spies mystery.

The term mystery is stretched just a little in the story, though in the main it does qualify for the genre. The killer is revealed very early, so there isn't much of a mystery about that, and the big twist for the second crime was easy to figure out even midway through the book. Some of the references are a little hokey and borderline unbelievable. The reporter named Scoop, for example, is just a little too precious. The fact that everyone in town seems highly supportive of these teenagers, who are clearly playing a dangerous game, goes beyond being farfetched. A scene near the end where the Super Spies get some recognition for their efforts is, in a word, preposterous.

But at the end of the day, the book is written for kids -- and kids will surely delight in the pulse-pounding action, the terror-inducing danger and the fact that together, four teenagers just might be smarter than an entire police department. Sarah is a heroine that's easy to believe in and look up to, and the warmth of friendship that permeates each page is sure to inspire good feelings. The book gives children the idea that they can do anything, figure anything out, so long as they stay true to themselves and to each other, and that is truly exceptional writing. Next time I find myself in a quiet little New England town, I'm sure I'll be looking around at the shaded houses and peaceful streets, wondering about all the many secrets that lurk beneath the surface...and peeking in library windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Super Spies.  

Writing 101: Forget About Formatting

 Good ebook formatting doesn't begin after you type the end of your story, it starts the moment you open the blank document to begin. I've talked about good manuscript formatting in the past, and it's pretty straightforward. But, if you really want to make it easy, there is another option: ebook templates.

eBook Templates 

Instead of formatting a blank document, you can always download an ebook template online instead. The template will have everything you need to write a book, and some things you might not: title page, dedication page, the text of the book itself, an "about the author" at the end. The best I've found are the CreateSpace templates offered by Amazon. They're downloadable in .doc format, the most common word processing software, and they're free.

Using a template is extremely easy. After you download the template you want, access it from your downloads folder (or wherever it is) and start putting your text into the template. Use your mouse to highlight the text in the template you're going to replace, and start typing your own text instead. The CreateSpace templates are already properly justified, so I can recommend them very highly.

Death Release Date Announced

At last, I'm prepared to announce a release date for Death (Deck of Lies, #3). And since I've waited so long about making the announcement, another piece of good news: you don't have much of a wait.

Death will be officially released on July 1, and I hear everyone in the U.S. is going to be setting off fireworks just three days later to celebrate (just a little nationwide soiree I whipped up in advance for your viewing enjoyment).

But...I'm not going to make you wait for the prologue. Go to my website right now, and you can download everything up to Chapter 1 right this very second -- just be advised that it's not a very long prologue.

Death is the longest book in the series to date, and yes, many things will at last be solved. You will know who killed whom, and why, and you will find even more lies hiding inside this installment of the Deck of Lies. You'll meet new characters, you'll find old characters and you'll even find out how Rain celebrates her Fourth of July (expect fireworks). The book's official cover will be unveiled soon, so keep an eye out, and I'll be announcing a special giveaway shortly after the release.

Deck of Lies in Paperback

After much re-reading and re-editing, tweaking and margin-moving, I am pleased to announce that the first two books in the Deck of Lies series are available in paperback -- with full back covers, and all! Just a little something for the reading purists out there. I'll also be releasing Death and Judgment to paperback when they're published (more news on Death to follow later).

The paperback version of Justice is 152 pages long, and sized to 8.5 x 5.5 -- making it perfect for display at a shelf near you.

The paperback version of The Tower is sized to match Justice. It's 160 pages long, which is barely enough room to contain all the many secrets.

And if you've decided to go fully digital, you can always get both Justice and The Tower on Kindle, Nook or in any electronic format of your choice at Smashwords.

Writing 101: How to Add a Table of Contents to an eBook

Let's face it: ereaders are awesome. They're lightweight, they're easy to hold, they can store thousands of books...they totally look like those electronic pads the characters on Star Trek walked around with all the time. I'm practically having a relationship with my Kindle. But if there's anything about reading ebooks that's not-so-awesome, it's the navigation. You can fix all that, and make the best parts of your book more accessible, by including a table of contents.

The TOC in the Modern Age

Many authors and readers consider the Table of Contents to be a bit of a wasted page in print books. Why tell me the names and location of every chapter, if I'm obviously going to find them while I'm reading anyway? But in the world of ebooks, the TOC is anything but a waste. For navigation's sake alone, you need to include it.

In ebooks, each entry in the TOC also acts as a link. Readers can very quickly and easily access a specific chapter anytime they wish...and don't you want them to keep coming back to your book, again and again? If they have to sit and page through tons of text, they're going to get frustrated and give up. Electronic things are supposed to make life easy.

Adding a Table of Contents also gives ebooks another invaluable feature: a bulleted read meter. Open an ebook, go to a random page, and look to the bottom of your ereader. See the line telling you how many pages or what percentage of the book you've gone through? When a TOC is in place, little tick marks will appear that show a reader when they're approaching a new chapter. It's a nice little feature, one that makes things easier and helps to naturally separate your text.

And if you still aren't convinced that you need a TOC for your ebook, then let this sway you: it's really easy to add one.

How to Add a TOC

 Adding a Table of Contents is no big deal, but it makes a big difference. There are approximately two ways you can go about it.

• HTML

Yes, it's almost always the answer to any ebook problem. Want to add something to your ebook? There's a code for that. And when it comes to adding a TOC, it's this: 

<div id="toc"> <p>Table of Contents</p>

<p><a href="#chapt1">Chapter One</a></p>

<p>a href="#chapt2">Chapter Two</a></p> 

and so on. 

Within the text of the book, you should place these tags around each chapter to link them to your TOC: 

<mpb:pagebreak />

 <h1><a name="chapt1">Chapter One</a></h1>

If you're using chapter titles or some system of your own, substitute "Chapter One" and all the rest with whatever you've used for your chapters. 

Frankly, it can be a pretty drawn-out affair, and if you get a single character wrong when you're writing out your HTML the Table of Contents won't work correctly. This is why I use my ebook conversion software, MobiPocket, instead. Load up your file, and simply hit the "Table of Contents" button to create it much more easily.

• The Easy Way

Luckily, there's an even easier way to create a TOC for your book: use Smashwords. There is no easier way to convert a .doc file into an ebook than this system, and if there is I haven't found it yet (but I'm open to suggestions). You cannot make use of this system if you're going to enroll your book in the KDP program. But if you aren't going the Amazon KDP route, Smashwords is absolutely the easiest way to go about doing this. Simply submit your .doc file to the system, go through the automatic conversion process, and download the Kindle-friendly copy of your own book free. You can get it in .mobi, .epub, .pdf and other formats. Here's the important part: Smashwords automatically generates a Table of Contents.

New Review: Falling in Love with Justice

 "I liked how thrilling and mysterious everything really was." Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) recently received a rating of "loved it!" at Livin' Life Through Books. Read the full review for more tidbits about the first book in the Deck of Lies series.

Writing 101: What, Exactly, is a Dystopian Book?

 It has come to my attention, during my various adventures in writer and reader forums around the Internet, that lots people -- even some authors -- don't actually know what a dystopian society is. It's not really a big deal...until you start incorrectly marketing your work as something it's not. It's true that a lot of readers might not know the difference, but plenty of them will. The readers aren't the ones who are going to look bad for not understanding the genre...you are. It's time to find out just exactly what makes a dystopian book dystopian. Don't assume you already know; you might be one of the people who made me sigh recently with a forum post. 

Dystopian Society

 If you want to get technical about it, calling something "dystopian" isn't altogether accurate anyway. More properly it ought to be referred to as a dystopian society, and that's the first piece of really important information you need to know. Dystopian books and stories of all kinds are deeply rooted in the society itself; often, authors will present the readers with a world view of this society through the eyes of a main protagonist.

 What's characteristic of a dystopian society? For starters, the people who live within it are being oppressed and usually wholly controlled by some sort of all-powerful government or collective. Control is the most important word here, and one of the defining characteristics of a dystopian society. In many cases, there are at least two distinct classes present in such stories: the people who are being controlled, and those who are doing the controlling. This type of society is also called anti-utopian, and the word itself is derived from the Greek word for "bad."

Dystopian vs. Post-Apocalyptic Societies

It seems to me, after wading through all the confused readers and writers on the forums (which shall not be named), that the big stumbling block in all this is post-apocalyptic societies. People who don't fully understand the idea of a dystopian society seem to think that dystopian societies are identical to post-apocalyptic societies, that in fact the two go hand-in-hand. This is patently incorrect.

A post-apocalyptic society isn't necessarily dystopian. In this type of society, some horrible event has occurred which has fundamentally changed the world on a global scale. Nuclear war, catastrophic weather events, alien invasion -- take your pick. Often, a new society rises in this new world in place of the old society...but there's no reason to presuppose that this new society is dystopian simply because the Apocalypse has occurred.

The Necessary Separation

I'm going to go ahead and blame lots of the current confusion on The Hunger Games, though let me add that I have nothing against Suzanne Collins or her work or her fans or anything else that has to do with her books. In The Hunger Games, a society which is both dystopian and post-apocalyptic is the setting for the events which take place. However, readers and writers should not take this to mean that all post-apocalyptic societies are dystopian, or vice versa.

I recently saw a list of "favorite dystopian movies" which included such films as Waterworld. This is not a correct classification of this film, based on my somewhat hazy memory and cursory research. As I understand it, the "bad guys" in this film are pirates...and not government officials. People are not being controlled. They're just trying to figure out life on the water. Also on the list: The Postman, The Book of Eli and Repo! The Genetic Opera. Two of these films are post-apocalyptic, and there is little to no mention of the government in them. One of these films is dystopian, but not post-apocalyptic. 

Your Role as an Author

What do you look for if you want to know the difference? Control. Catastrophe marks post-apocalyptic stories; control marks dystopian stories. Knowing the difference is important if you're going to write a story that's one, the other, or both. If I go shopping for some all-hell-has-broken-loose post-apocalyptic fare and find a bunch of dystopian stories instead, I'm not just going to hate you as the writer who got it wrong. 

I might hate all indies, because I might think that none of them have any idea what they're talking about. So don't be that guy. Know your business, know your genre, know your categories. Know what the heck you're writing, and how to identify it. If you don't identify it properly, you're not going to like the way you get identified as an author hack. Never forget that the title author is absolutely necessary for the word authoritative. That is not a mistake.

Plagiarism and Copyright Violations: What to Do When it Hapens to You

 Okay, I Google myself. I'll go ahead and admit it. It's not narcissism, it's a really good idea for indie authors and bloggers of all kinds. You want to know what people are responding to, what they're not responding to, what's working and what isn't. But even if you don't want to know all that, you should still Google yourself. How else are you going to know that someone out there is stealing your content? 

Content Theft

Content theft is incredibly common on the Internet, though you may not be aware of it until it actually happens to you. And if you aren't actively checking for it, you may never become aware of it. Some thefty site out there might be copying every single one of your blog posts, verbatim, and reaping the benefits of your hard work. Unless you're doing regular checks, they're going to get away with it.

• Copyscape. Check your URLs through copyscape. Always run your recent URLs through the site, not just the main URL of your home page. 
• Online search. Run your name periodically through your favorite search engine(s). If you suspect that your content is being copied but you can't find it, add one or two of the words from the title of your post. For example, I might search for Jade Varden, writing 101 to see who's stealing my posts.

Online Copyright Violations

I'm not just an advocate of protecting oneself against copyright violations -- I'm a victim. This particular post was born several days ago, when I happened to stumble across no less than nine different sites that had copied one of my blog posts, in whole, and posted it without giving me so much as a by-your-leave.

It's illegal for them to do that, you know. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA for short, says that it's not cool for one site to copy content from another site and re-publish it without the original poster's knowledge or consent -- and obviously I'm paraphrasing here. The point is, you have rights. One of them says that if you don't want someone taking content right from your site and putting it somewhere else, you don't have to take it. 

But you're going to have to really, really work for it if you want to make things right again. 

What to Do About It

First, identify that the content is indeed yours, and that you never gave this other site permission to re-distribute it. Locate the original content on your own site. Make note of the URL where it appears on your site, the full title and the date on which you posted it. When you're sure the theft is genuine, roll up your sleeves.

• Look for contact info. First, you're required to contact the owner of the theft site and request (politely) that they remove the unauthorized content. Perform a thorough and complete search of the site to find this contact information. If it's there, send your email and sit back and wait. If the owner does not respond to you after a week, or if they do respond and tell you to go screw yourself, take further action.
• Look for the owner. Don't be fooled by templates. When you go in search of the owner of a website or blog, it's easy to get led astray. Many sites, particularly those that make it a habit of stealing content, use templates from popular blogging sites like Typepad, WordPress and Blogger. They do this in order to make it look like they're running through these sites, but in some cases they actually are not. You're going to have to investigate. 
• Look up the domain. Go to a domain-finding site to find out to whom the site actually belongs. Lots of people advocate WhoIs, and it's fine if it works for you. It doesn't work for me, and that's why I use BetterWhoIs. Enter the URL of the homepage, and find out the actual domain name of the site. You should also be able to see from where the domain name has been registered. GoDaddy, for example, is a very popular domain name registrar. Make a note of the domain name and the registrar. 
• Report them. You've got to let someone know that your rights are being infringed upon. If the site in question actually is powered through WordPress or another popular blogging site, visit that site's homepage. Look for the Support menu or Contact menu to find an online form or email address you may use to report copyright violations. Blogger websites are very easy to report; just look for the "report abuse" link right at the top of the website. For purchased domain names, you may report copyright violations to the registrar itself. Visit the registrar's homepage and look for contact and/or report links in order to locate the appropriate form or email.
• Make it a thing. If all else fails, and you've followed all the steps above and done everything else you can possibly do, report the thieving website to the government. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act says that this content theft site stole your intellectual property, and you don't have to take that sitting down (unless you're typing an email, in which case you kinda do). Use the online form to report it to the right people, and protect your content. Read everything. Making false statements through this form is illegal, and you will be liable for the consequences of violating those laws.

That Sounds Like a Lot of Effort...

The steps above all very tedious, I know. It is, after all, just a little content. Is it really that big of a deal if another site takes some of it?

Yes. Not only is it against the law for other sites to steal your content, but by reporting them you're helping all the other bloggers out there. A site that steals content from one blogger is probably going to do it to another. A site that gets away with all this theft is going to keep on doing it -- to as many people as possible. The only way to stop them is to report them. If content thieves find that they're continually being reported, and every domain name they start up gets shut down, eventually they'll move on to a new scam...and one day, maybe the Internet will be safe for all bloggers everywhere.

It's not a waste of time to report content theft. It's the right thing to do.