What Indies Should Pay For...And What They Shouldn't

Everyone's self-publishing these days, and the ebook market is booming. Lots of indies are cracking the bestseller lists and making a name for themselves. There's opportunity out there...and wherever there's opportunity, there are people who prey upon it. Self-publishing isn't free, no matter what anyone says. Some things, you've got to pay for. Some things, you shouldn't pay for. Learn how to tell the difference, and spend your money where it's going to matter most. 

What Indies Should Pay For

Some things cost money, even in self-publishing. When it comes to creating a book that you're trying to sell to the masses, there are some things you're going to have to buy...and some things that maybe you should buy. 

• Copyright. Where you're writing your book matters. Make sure to look up the copyright requirements for your current home country. In the United States, for example, you have to pay to register your copyright. Always do this before you publish a book!
• Editing. Lots of authors are bad at editing. I personally am atrocious at spelling. It takes a lot of work and time to edit your book, which you must do quite thoroughly before you publish. You may want to consider hiring a professional editor if you know you're terrible at it and you can't seem to find the time to do it. If your time is more profitably spent at other tasks, in other words if hiring an editor won't lose you too much money, consider using a paid service.
• Cover. Not artistic? It's okay, lots of writers aren't. If you can't seem to create a book cover, or don't know how, you might want to hire an artist or graphic designer. You can find ebook designers everywhere, but if you're looking for something specific it's always an option to place a free classified ad on Craigslist.

And What Indies Shouldn't Pay For...

Turning a manuscript into a full-fledged book is a tedious process that takes a ton of time and care. During the journey, you're going to see advertisements and maybe even make contacts who offer to make things a little easier for you. But some things, indie authors should be doing for themselves.

• eBook formatting. Learning ebook codes and formatting a manuscript so it becomes a readable ebook is a long and frustrating process. You need special software, you've got to convert files and once you start adding a Table of Contents and images into the mix you're just tormenting yourself. It's certainly a lot easier to pay someone to format your book for you, but it's a waste of money. It can save you only a few hours at most, and ebook formatting is something anyone can figure out for themselves (I know, because I can do it and I can never figure anything out).
• Book trailers. Plenty of indie authors have book trailers for their books, awesome 1- or 2-minute videos designed to pique the interest of potential readers. They look great and they carry a certain cachet...but that doesn't mean you should spend any money on them. To be frank, book trailers don't really sell a whole lot of books. They're cool, they're a fun extra and they help show that you're serious about what you do, but tons of sales probably aren't going to come flooding in because you posted something on YouTube. Professional book trailers are expensive, and you can create your own using free images, software and video clips. Maybe your trailers won't look pro, maybe they take a long time to make, but they'll do until you sell your first million copies.
• Reviews. Yes, you can pay for reviews. Kirkus is the most prestigious, but there are tons of other review sites and companies out there that want your money in exchange for their opinions. My advice is don't do it. It's an unnecessary expense. With hard work and time, you can scour the Internet and find tons of book review sites and lots of bloggers who are perfectly happy to review books for free. They get free books to read, indies get reviewed and everyone's happy. When money and favors start exchanging hands, the whole thing becomes a little tainted. One honest review from an enthusiastic reader is worth 20 reviews you paid to get. Save your money, and spend your time instead to get truly heartfelt reviews.

Spending Your Money

Self-publishing is a business, and in any business you're going to find lots of people who want to cash in. You'll be approached by blogs offering promotional services, tantalizing ads for big lists that you can't see unless you pay for them, tons of opportunities that could be reached if only you pay a little money. Sleep on it first. Find out exactly what they're offering for your money, and take the time to get online and see if you can achieve the same thing on your own. Chances are, you can. Indies exist because they learned how to do everything themselves, so don't be quick to pay for something that looks like a great opportunity. There are lots of ways you can create your own opportunities, and lots of reasons you should save your money for other stuff. 

Meet the Characters From Justice!

I've done several interviews where I've talked about my books and my writing process. For the first time, my characters are taking the spotlight and sharing their thoughts.

Visit Today in Shenaya to read an interview with the characters from Justice (yes, including River) and find out what things look like from their point of view.

Goodreads Tips for Self-Published Authors

If you're not using Goodreads to promote yourself and your book, you're doing yourself a disservice. Goodreads is the book nerds' version of Facebook -- with a whole lot more features. If you don't already have a profile on Goodreads, get one! Join the site's author program (if you're an author), and you're ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level. Master a few Goodreads tips, and you'll expose your writing to a much larger market. 

Mastering Goodreads

If you have a Twitter account, Facebook profile or an email address, you can sign up for Goodreads. You've got to sign up for the site first and fill in the requisite profile information. Once this is done, you can sign up to be in the author program to distinguish yourself as a writer of books. It's a great first step...but it's only the beginning of what you'll need to do to really establish a presence on the site. 

• Blog. Your GR profile automatically has blog space. You're free to post pithy writings here and attract all sorts of new readers...but you may already have a blog. If you do, you can link your existing blog to your Goodreads account and still attract readers anyway. To do it go to your profile, find the area for your blog, and use the "edit" option to update it. In the space provided, add your RSS link and Goodreads will take care of the rest. The site is slow. Some of your posts may take hours or even days to update, but just be patient with the system and it will update itself.
• Links. Edit your profile to add links to your Twitter account and your website. Always add this! Lots of Goodreads members might visit your profile to see if you're also on Twitter, and I know because I'm one of them. Every time I get a friend request, I take a look at my new friend's profile so I can find them on Twitter, too. 
• Bio. Add a professional bio. If you already have a standard author bio, just use this -- there's no need to get fancy. Remember that professional author bios are usually written in the third person. Some authors are very good at this, and they create copy that's exciting and compelling. I'm terrible at it, so that's one Writing 101 post you're never going to get. Basically, come up with a few lines about yourself and about what you write, and try to make sure it's good enough that it won't drive potential readers away.
• Join forums. Goodreads has more forums than you can shake a dictionary at. Look for forums that are relevant to you and your genre. I belong to several groups dedicated to indie writers and self-published authors, not to mention groups about YA and mystery books (because that's who I am, and that's what I write). Don't go crazy. Only join forums that are relevant and somehow interesting to you, because a big part of maintaining and establishing a strong Goodreads presence is reading forums regularly. I try to check my groups every day (it's a great source for new post ideas, not to mention a fountain of addresses to review blogs).
• Use the widgets. Goodreads has a lot of different widgets for authors (you can find some of them here on my blog). Use them! With the widgets, it's easy to invite readers to add your books to their GR shelf and to show off your GR reviews.
• Kobo. Speaking of reviews, you can link all your Goodreads reviews to your Kobo listing. If you're on Smashwords, you're automatically on Kobo unless you go into your channel manager and turn this option off. I know this is true because I was surprised to find myself on Kobo. I was even more surprised when I learned it's possible to link Goodreads reviews to Kobo book listings. The problem is, there's a trick to it. In order to get Kobo to read your GR reviews, you've got to change the ISBN number of your book. Don't worry -- it's totally easy. Go to the Home page tab of Goodreads. Look to the left to access your dashboard, and then hit the edit link to your first book. Copy the ISBN from Smashwords into the ISBN on GR. Wait about 1 day, and the GR reviews should appear. 

Most importantly, you've got to add your books to your Goodreads profile. They'll appear right there in the middle for all to see, so you want to do this. To add your books to your profile, first search for them on the Goodreads system. Don't bother looking by title; search using your ISBN numbers. If you can't find them this way, you'll have to manually enter the info yourself. The GR site will walk you through the whole process. 

Goodreads is a little tricky. They'll automatically add "buy" links to your book's page...and chances are, these links aren't going to work (they don't work for me). I banged my face against my keyboard in frustration for a few days before I found a way to circumvent this system that doesn't work: I added my links straight to the book descriptions themselves, which I do have control over. This is the easiest way to get the correct buy links with the correct books. Unless you want to have several different versions of the same book on the site, do yourself a favor and copy my quick and easy method. 

Get Captivated by The Tower

"Another captivating read."

"Rain gets even more tangled in lies."

Felicia at Livin' Life Through Books has posted a review of The Tower, a follow-up to her review of Justice. 

Read her review of The Tower if you've already read Justice, but if you haven't you'd better wait! There are some spoilers you'll want to avoid.

Another Review for Justice

"Honesty, this might be the best book I’ve read so far."

"Very well written and captured my attention from the first page."

Justice has been reviewed at Classy Me Books -- go and read it!

Books on Film: Interview with the Vampire

When Interview with the Vampire was penned, everyone was still wearing polyester. The book wouldn't become a film for nearly 20 years. When the film was released, vampires weren't even cool. But if you were around back then, you know that Interview was the Twilight of its day...minus the werewolves.

The Book

Interview with the Vampire was the first book Anne Rice wrote. It began as a short story around 1969, but soon blossomed into a multi-book series. The first book in The Vampire Chronicles, Interview, was published in 1976. 

The story opens with Louis, a vampire who's 200 years old. He's telling his incredible life story to a reporter, referred to as "the boy." Louis lived in New Orleans in 1791 when he met the vampire Lestat, who turned Louis. The two became companions of a sort on the plantation. Louis hates himself. He cannot stand his own nature, so he feeds only from animals (remind you of anyone?), while Lestat gives in wholeheartedly to his bloodlust. In fact, Lestat finds Louis's kind-hearted nature and apparent regard for human life to be a huge flaw.

He is fighting the bloodlust, and failing. One late night in a poor section of New Orleans, Louis finds a weeping 6-year-old child next to the dead body of her mother. Louis feeds on her, against his own will. Lestat discovers him, and he turns the girl into a vampire. Her name is now Claudia.

Louis hates what Lestat has done, but he loves Claudia. She is an able killer of humans right from the start, and for many years the three live in a happy, lavish lifestyle in New Orleans. But time passes, and passes, and passes...and little Claudia does not grow. She does mature, and soon begins to understand her own nature and the fact that she will be trapped in a child's body for all eternity. She blames Lestat for her condition and develops an intense hatred. Claudia turns Louis's own wishy-washy feelings against him and hones his ambivalence into searing hatred.

Together, they kill Lestat by poisoning him, slitting his throat and dumping his body into the swamp. The matter thus settled, Louis and Claudia leave New Orleans to go to France together. They are in search of other vampires, believing themselves to be the only undead in America now that Lestat is gone. Or is he? While the pair departs via ship France, Lestat begins to recover. He attempts to stop a fleeing Louis and Claudia, who set fire to their home, and Lestat is left to burn. 

Louis and Claudia finally do find vampires in Paris in the form of the Theatre des Vampires. They specifically encounter Armand, who is 400. The group stages plays to find their human victims. Claudia dislikes them at once, but Louis is strangely compelled to Armand. Santiago, another of the group, is suspicious of the two newcomers. He believes they are guilty of the worst of all vampire crimes: killing their maker, Lestat.

Claudia, jealous of Louis's growing friendship with the others, demands her own companion. She chooses Madeline, a dollmaker, and the three set up house together. It doesn't last long. They are taken in the night by the theater group based on the word of Lestat, who is not dead but immortal and well in Paris.

Louis is locked in a coffin so he may slowly starve to death. Claudia and Madeline are locked within an open courtyard with no roof to await the appearance of the sun. Armand arrives in time to release Louis, but not in time to free the other two. Claudia and Madeline are both burned to ash by the sun. Louis retaliates by killing all the vampires and fleeing with Armand.

The relationship doesn't last. Louis is heartbroken, and he splits from Armand to return to New Orleans in the 20th century. Here, he feeds off humans as needed but avoids contact otherwise.

Louis is a brooding, reluctant vampire. The purpose of his tale is that being alive for ever is weary, lonely, fraught with suffering. The interviewer sees none of this. He begs to become a vampire as well, but Louis does not fulfill the request. Louis leaves, and the interviewer sets off to find Lestat.

The Film

Paramount Pictures purchased the rights to Interview even before the book was published. Nothing happened for 10 years, and Paramount's rights expired. Rice sold the rights to Lorimar Productions, which was bought out by Warner Bros. shortly thereafter.

 

In the early 90s, they decided to make the film. Rice co-wrote the script with veteran screenwriter Neil Jordan, and the cast was picked. Rice didn't agree with the choices. She disliked the idea of seeing Tom Cruise as Lestat, and made it public knowledge that she was unhappy. Studio executives wouldn't be deterred, however.

When the film premiered in 1994 and became a gigantic success, Rice recanted her statements and loudly cheered Cruise's performance.  Brad Pitt starred as Louis, Antonio Banderas as Armand and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia. Christian Slater ended up playing the interviewer (the boy) when River Phoenix tragically died before he could perform the role.

The movie was such a big success, it brought Interview back to the bestseller lists and sparked a huge vampire craze in bookstores and film. It is faithful enough to the book, though the ending was changed somewhat. In the film, the interviewer ends up being approached by Lestat after Louis has left the interview room. Lestat drinks from him and they drive off together -- in San Francisco, not New Orleans.

What Got Adapted?

Of course, it wouldn't be a book on film if a bunch of little changes that don't seem to make a lot of sense weren't added or omitted. Lestat never appears in Paris in the film, and Louis is given a wife and child in the opening scenes. Claudia's poison cocktail for Lestat was also changed on film, and many of her travels with Louis are omitted. The two journeyed many places in search of vampires, and found only a race of mindless drinkers in Transylvania before locating the Parisian group.

And then there's the casting, which many fans (and Rice herself) found fault with. Kirsten Dunst, while adorable, was 12 years old when she played Claudia -- twice the age of the character. Considering the subject matter and the demands of the role, however, I think this is a fair change. The other changes are iffier. Banderas doesn't look like Armand, Cruise doesn't look like Lestat and I thought Brad Pitt was frankly horrible as Louis (he just didn't know how to play it).

Some other bits of story were cut, like Lestat's relationship with his father, but all in all Interview is a very good film adaptation that accurately captures the original book. The end scenes were shoved into a more modern period (you won't see any disco balls) and the star-studded cast is more about box office figures than actually fitting into the roles, but it's a decent little flick if you like vampire movies. Anne Rice deeply studied vampire lore while writing her tale, and I always appreciate good research. If you're a Twilight fan, and even if you aren't, you should definitely read this version of a vampire book.

Thinking About Justice

 "This book is full of twists and turns. There is never a dull moment and Justice really keeps you guessing."

"That is what is so great about Jade's writing. She is fresh, original and makes you think!"

Justice has been reviewed at Little Hyuts. Find out what the reader didn't like when you read the full review. Sign up for one of the giveaways (look to the left!) to get a free copy of the book, and see if you agree with the review! 

Deck of Lies Diva Challenge Now Open

The Deck of Lies Diva Challenge is now open! 

Use the button on the right to sign into Fashion Fantasy Game with your Facebook account and start designing an outfit for Rain. You'll get a chance to win a copy of the first book in the series when you play!