Creating and Publishing a Book on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Using a Chromebook and Google Drive

A Day Out with Mom

That's a pretty long title for this article, especially since this article isn't going to be a long and detail-filled exposition of step-by-step how to put together a book using the online-centered Chromebook and Google Drive platforms. The truth is that it's not that difficult to independently publish your own book using Kindle Direct Publishing's program. I've used the KDP platform to publish three small books (around one hundred pages) that have been based on blog articles I've written. My last book, recently published, is the first one, though, that I've put together using Google Drive's online word processing rather than Microsoft word processing and a fully independent laptop. The bottom line is that working online with a Chromebook was a bit slower at times, that the Google Doc word processing program was a bit more limited than Word, but that once I realized the differences, I was pretty much able to do whatever I wanted to create the book. 

Here are the three books I've published through Amazon's KDP, available both as paperbacks and as ebooks:

• RTTC Bears in the Wild (2021)
• A Day Out with Mom (2014)
• I Write: Being and Writing (2012)

KDP allows an author to sign up and then begin creating a book, walking the author through the steps of "Creating a New Title":

• Book Content: You can upload a manuscript, or use our free creation tools to create children's books, educational content, comics, and manga. Get started with Kindle content creation tools.
• Book Cover: You can use our online Cover Creator, or upload a cover of your own. Creating a great cover.
• Description, Keywords and Categories: Tell readers about your book and help them find it on Amazon.
• ISBN: Get a free ISBN to publish your paperback. Kindle eBooks don't need one. More about ISBNs.

I Write: Being & Writing

For each step, Amazon KDP provides guidance, and there are also usually online blogs and YouTube videos that provide insights. What I've found about Chromebooks, which don't have the memory capacity of traditional computers because information is saved online, and what I've found out about working on Google Drive's doc platform, is that there are a few speed and capabilities limitations. However, for a traditional book layout, these boundaries are more occasional nuisances than deal breakers. 

I've put together eight books since 2010 (see my Amazon author's page), using Adobe, Microsoft, and Google Doc word processing programs. The first book, a poetry book, was compiled using Microsoft Word, the next two used Adobe's InDesign, and the last have used KDP with Word or Google Doc templates. I had a friend who helped me a lot with the first three books, and we also designed the book covers using Adobe Photo Shop. For the later books, I used KDP's book design templates.

Here are some of the nuisances and limitations I've discovered using KDP and Google Docs on a Chromebook.

• The KDP downloaded templates have a set number of chapters when downloaded. Because of my limited word processing and designing expertise, I found the process of working with the sections, rows, and columns to be a challenge, especially since I only put together a book every few years. I did manage by fiddling around to learn how to widen certain cells or add more rows in the table of contents section. I learned how to add more chapters to the book and table of contents. If I knew more, I probably could have been more efficient, though.
• Some of what I learned through my experience with Word had to be massaged to understand for Google Docs. For instance, adding anchors for ebook navigation in Word (moving from the table of contents to the chapter and back to the TOC) was not exactly the same for Google Docs. "Bookmarks" is the Docs designation for anchors, and the possibilities for use seem to be limited in Docs. I say "seem" because it wasn't always clear. I'd read an article online of how to set up an ebook's table of contents for the Amazon Kindle platform using Docs, and then some of the directions from the article met up with the Docs platform just not having the "go to" or "click" steps available. 
• As my book grew in length--as I inserted chapters and photos--saving the program grew a little longer. I had moments of panic when I received a message from the Kindle draft viewing function saying that there was an error in saving. What! Had I lost the entire manuscript? What I realized after a time of panic was that the movement of the manuscript from Google Drive to Kindle might take a bit and to not jump right from compiling the book on Drive to checking out what the book will look like on the preview section. The process was not instantaneous. That scare did lead me, though, to regularly making copies of the publishing draft and saving them under a new name, such as "Bear March 25," which provided the assurance that if all my compiling work did get lost or corrupted in the ether, that I'd have a copy of what I'd created.

These few insights leads me to the need to reiterate that my last three books have been collections of blog articles that I've compiled into books, listed earlier in this article. Creating the book wasn't just copying and pasting the articles into the book template, though. I mean, well, it was that, but a book is different than a blog; book chapters are different than blog articles. Time flows differently in a book than in a blog. Words like "here," "now," and "today" don't play out the same in books as in blogs. Therefore, the final manuscript for these books was significantly different than all the blog articles put together. The books are unique documents, and losing a manuscript because saving in the cloud didn't work would be a real downer. 

My blog articles were in a very real way just drafts of an upcoming book that I've shared with readers. For my first blog-to-book adventure--I Write: Being and Writing--I didn't even have the idea of putting the articles together into a book until while talking to a friend about a series of articles I was writing he said, "Hey, you know, you could put those together into a book." That may seem pretty obvious, but it was a revelation to me at the time. The concept isn't new, that's for sure. During the 1800s, Dickens and others first serialized their novels for periodicals prior to publishing them as books.

RTTC Bears in the Wild

My final thoughts on using laptops that word process primarily from online platforms--and then coupling that with online independent publishing platforms--is that regular creation of backup files of the manuscript (even if backed up online) is always a good idea. It will provide you with a sense of security. A second point is that there may be time lags sometimes, that you can't just jump from one step to another quickly. Be patient. And finally, the Google Doc word processing program may have some limitations that can probably be worked around but which might cause some frustration or even necessitate some adaptation. 

These are just my experiences, but most folks are like me, not wizards at all the ins and outs of whatever word process and publishing platforms are being utilized. It's like fixing something in our home. You fix or replace something, and then ten years later you have to do it again. "Now how did I do that?" you think, and then you have to go back and learn all over, at the same time realizing that in ten years things have changed. Oh, well! I've managed to produce a nice little book, RTTC Bears in the Wild, which I think provides some good reading and good color photos this last time around. It was a great experience to research this little camping book, to write the blog articles, and then to put everything together and make available both as a paperback and an ebook. Although not the only game in town (KDP only publishes on Amazon), I've found my Chromebook, Google Doc, and KDP combination to work fine for me. If you want to read the book, it's readily available, and I call that a successful venture into independent publishing.

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Tom Kepler Writing: Thanksgiving Week Free Downloads

For the week of Thanksgiving, I am offering free downloads of my books that are available at Smashwords. 

I am thankful to have the opportunity to make my books available, and I'm happy to share this offer with my readers.

The procedure for a free download at Smashwords is to link to the book's page (link provided below), and then "buy" the book, using the coupon code in order to download the book for free.

I Write: Being and Writing: My latest book, this is a compilation and rewrite of blog posts about writing. I address the relationship between the writer, the process of writing, and the written word. The coupon code for a free download is TV99H.

"I write." We have to consider both words in that declaration. We have to expand the container of knowledge, the mind, and also develop our writing skills. Learning how to write is a life-long process. It is one that demands dedication and humility and perseverance. It is one that requires a certain knack that is an integration of skill and comprehensive thinking. One might say, "As we are, so is our writing."

 The Stone Dragon: This is my fantasy novel that could be called "consciousness-based" fantasy because it explores the relationship between consciousness and magic. The coupon code for a free download is WR28H.

Dream magic is the most dangerous of magics because it is so difficult to control.  Apprentice mage Glimmer—Not a Glimmer of Magic—realizes this when he discovers that his apparent lack of magical talent is because his magic manifests only when he is dreaming.  His first attempt at dream magery conjures a dragon, and just before dying in dragonfire, Glimmer, in desperation, locks the dragon within the stones of his master’s house.  How, though, do you live in a house that is also a dragon?  And how can you even sleep—knowing that dream might slip to nightmare?

Love Ya Like a Sister: Be your own man. That’s what people say. But what if that includes having three girlfriends at the same time—and trouble with the law? My first novel published, LYLAS takes a "gritty" look at the world of teens, a young adult novel for grown-ups (in the words of two reviewers). The conflicts in the novel are met by a young man and his friends, and family, friendship, and personal integrity ultimately prevail. The coupon code for a free download is WG57A.

"The author has described Love Ya Like a Sister as young adult chick lit with a male protagonist. While that seems like a strange description, it’s a good one. Although chick lit should have a protagonist who is a chick, that is the only reason this book couldn’t be considered chick lit. It has the other defining elements, primarily being 'a personal and foible-filled journey toward self-understanding and self-awareness.'"  Big Al's Books and Pals

Who Listened to Dragons, Three Stories: Set in the same reality as the fantasy novel The Stone Dragon, three short stories continue the magic of the novel. Two brothers--one the strange one, the other the brother of the strange one, desert and wyrm, river's daughters or river nymphs, soldiers or assassins, retribution or abomination . . . Visit a land where magic makes all things are possible.

I enjoyed exploring other possibilities in this universe, considering magic, geography, and history. I plan to eventually write more short stories for this series. The coupon code for a free download is XP37E.

"[The stories] silently work their way into your brain so that odd images and thoughts and layers of meaning hover around like smoke for days afterwards. Highly recommended." Goodreads Review

May you all have a happy and restful holiday, and if you enjoy reading my books, please write some reviews. Many thanks.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Apple Bookstore Releases My Books

I have three eBooks distributed through the Apple Bookstore and should soon have four after my non-fiction work I Write: Being and Writing is processed. 

I distribute my books to Apple through Smashwords. Apple manually checks additions, which takes about two weeks, according Smashwords.

Smashwords' November 3 blog post was "How to Sell Ebooks at the Apple iBookstore." The graphic below from the post demonstrates why authors should make sure to make available links to the iBookstore.

Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, provides six tips in the blog post on how to market a book at the iBookstore and at other outlets.

Here are the tips, short version:

1.  Read Coker's free The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success.
2. Maintain an online presence at the Apple site. Persevere.
3. Use Apple links, widgets, and buttons to promote your books on their site.
4. Even a few sales helps because of the "Customers Also Bought" algorithm.
5. Merchandising managers like many pleased customers, so sales and social media fans along with sales are always big attention-getters.
6. Be positive, Coker emphasizes. "New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry said it best, here in his interview at the Smashwords blog: Think about a party. If there’s someone who is bitching and moaning and someone else who’s getting folks to laugh and loosen up, which way do you drift?"

The tips that struck me as immediate needs and easily accomplished were to provide links and widgets to my eBooks available at Apple. I used the link- and widget-making tools to for my blog and book sites.

The links are now included with the list on the sidebar to the right of my blog posts. Widgets are included on the pages for each book. I found doing these two tasks easy and quick.

Here is a composite widget below:

If you read books through Apple electronic platforms, check mine out. I always like it when Smashwords sends me an email, letting me know that I've sold an eBook through their distribution channels.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

I Write: Being & Writing--Published through CreateSpace/Amazon Rather Than Lightning Source

The experiment is complete--I Write: Being & Writing available through Amazon/Create Space rather than Lightning Source--and I am satisfied.

You might wonder at the word satisfied. Why not thrilled or ecstatic?

My experiment was to use CreateSpace's templates, to publish using a Word template for the interior block and the CreateSpace template software for the cover. Within the limitations imposed by using the templates, I am completely satisfied with my book--but there also is the inescapable truth that those limitations exist.

I wanted to use the simplest approach so that when I used the process with my students, putting together the book was as straightforward, easy, and quick as possible. I feel that the CreateSpace process fills that need. I published I Write: Being & Writing to become familiar with the software and whatever quirks existed in the process. That really took little time, having already published three books through Lightning Source.

You might imagine going to school at a large university and then transferring to a community college; the processes would be essentially the same to enroll and register for classes. It was like that for going from Lightning Source to CreateSpace. Instead of InDesign, I used Word. Instead of PhotoShop, I used CreateSpace's Cover Creator software. The results were predictable, and the limitations were what one would predict.

• Some lines in the interior have more space than I would like, due to Word's lack of tracking sophistication that InDesign has.
• I have to alter some of CreateSpace's Word template's styles to achieve a less intrusive look, such as centered, two-line titles (chapter number and title), rather than all caps left-hand titles that started with a chapter numeral.
• Word software is always a mystery and is less predictable than InDesign, although InDesign is much more complex. It took a while to understand the logic of whomever set up the template. This is nobody's fault, but it did take time.

CreateSpace does explain in its instructions that the Word templates for the interior can be altered. The company also provides opportunities to choose from a variety of cover templates, and then those templates have some capacity for alteration, such as uploading your own cover image. The cover may end up with a flavor of boilerplate familiarity, but for my non-fiction book, the blocked visual layout was okay with me.

Online software at CreateSpace also allows one to see how the interior and cover will look. This is a great feature to provide continual assessment of the book as you go. If something is below standard, such as a photo lacking resolution, then the software informs you. Once you are ready to publish, the software automatically will generate the PDF for the interior and for the cover. This is a great feature. It should be mentioned here for those who are more advanced with publishing software that one can use more sophisticated software such as Adobe products, create the bookblock and cover, convert to PDF, and then submit those, just like at Lightning Source.

The big question is whether my next book will be a Print on Demand book through Lightning Source or through CreateSpace. This seems to be a hot topic on the internet. One good article (pro-CS) is "Why is Cool Gus Publishing switching from Lightning Source to CreateSpace?" I cannot argue with any of the ideas presented--lower price, helpful aids to evaluate the evolving cover and interior block, quite a lot of online advice, to mention a few.

However, at this time I like it that Lightning Source works with me as a publisher, Wise Moon Books, and not as an author who wants to independently publish. It's kind of like dealing with the Apple company. The services are great yet are also completely controlled by the vision of one company. As a publisher, do I want that?

I honestly can't answer that question at this time. My next book is a year off--revision and formatting still in the future. I've got a while to read, discuss, and consider. In the meantime, I Write: Being & Writing is available as a paper and eBook through CreateSpace/Amazon and Kindle. It should also soon be available through Smashwords.

Take a look. I hope you enjoy and appreciate my (and CreateSpace's) end product.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

I Love Free Books for My Kindle

Every now and then I buy a book for my Kindle e-reader, but what I love most are all the free Kindle books.

Before I continue with my lovefest for free Kindle books, I need to note that there are other sources of free books.

• Project Gutenberg is a wonderful source of public domain free e-books, having over 39,000 "classics" available. "We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers." One day I'd like to be a volunteer.
• ManyBooks is another source I've used, with many downloads (29,000) available in many formats, like Project Gutenberg. ManyBooks has also put together a list of reviews about the many e-readers available, such as the various incarnations of Kindles, Nooks, and tablets.
• Google Books seems to have many online books available. Going to the "classics" section finds the free e-books that can be downloaded. I haven't used this service much, though.

Kindle has many of the classics available for free downloads via the e-reader. It's easy, but it helps to know exactly the book or author you're looking for. Browsing Charles Dickens' books leads to more straightforward choices than browsing "Victorian novels," for instance.

I find the public domain books useful and interesting when looking for original sources. For instance, after reading a National Geographic article of the American Civil War, I was motivated to download Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (in two volumes). Evidently, this was dictated by Grant at the last of his life to Samuel Clemens. (An interesting story about the Grant/Clemens connection here.)

Another example of seeking out original sources is connected to the non-fiction book The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard. I had checked the book out from my local library. Early in my reading of the book, I decided to download Roosevelt's version of his South American exploring, a book entitled Through the Brazilian Wilderness. Reading both versions of the same expedition was quite illuminating.

I find the books I buy for my Kindle are ones that I would call "disposable" books--ones I'll read but most likely not re-read, entertainment or recreational books that I can buy most cheaply as an e-book. Then, if I find myself really drawn to the book, I consider buying a paper version.

I like the idea of saving paper and lowering the carbon footprint of shipping by reading on an e-reader. I find the Kindle and Nook easy to read, easy on the eyes. Those are the two readers I've used extensively. I prefer the non-backlit screens of the e-ink readers, rather than a computer screen.

Try a free e-book download. "Classic" is a broad term--even if it just means a book is in the public domain and is no longer copyrighted. Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.P. Lovecraft are all for free--but hardly "stuffy" classics. You might also try using the free-book sources to go to original sources. Grant's memoirs, for instance, are considered to be excellent examples of a more objective approach to generalship and the battles of the Civil War--not so much "the battles I generaled as a hero" focus.

E-books are a whole new world--one that I'm enjoying learning about and participating in, both as a reader and as an author.

Copyright 2012, by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Don't Respond: Spam Can Be Dangerous

Being uninformed and gullible can be dangerous.

This is certainly true in both the physical world and also in the virtual world of the internet. 

Below are a couple of examples related to internet naivete.

CONGRATULATIONS!! LIVERWOOD AWARD Committee, HAS GRANTED A HUGE SUM OF £1.5 MILLION BRITISH POUNDS TO YOUR EMAIL; For claims,


Send Name:
Contact Add:
Zip Code:
Phone #:
Age:

 If the "company" is contacted, you are then contacted by another "company" that states that you must first pay shipping, vat (value added tax), and insurance. 

There are people gullible to fall for this. My research tells me this scam has been operating for a long time. Not all scams are so obvious, though--either in procedures or intent.

Some scams do not seek money but information. As a writer, I recently came across, through Google Alerts, the possibility that one of my e-books (or another publication that has the same title) was being offered as a free download by an overseas company. The only way to gain access to the free e-book was to sign up with the site: providing name and personal information.

Doing that, you can (from my research) download the e-book for free. However, the site now has your personal information. I searched for a contact address outside the "sign-up" box, but nothing was available. The site is a closed box unless you open it by providing personal information. Evidently, the site's main function is to gain information for identity theft. The fact that it actually provides a product disguises its real purpose.

The bottom line? Be sure to research a site before providing information. What is its reputation on the internet? What are others saying about the site or "company"?

You may save yourself a great deal of grief with a little caution and research.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Three Short Stories to Publish as an Ebook

I've decided to publish three short stories as an e-book to sell for $.99, which comes to about 125 words per penny.

The cover above is in its current incarnation.  I took the original photo and used a section to save as background color with texture--just plain color wasn't dynamic enough. Then I added that twice as a background layer, top and bottom of the image. I added the eye section of the original photo to the middle. Then I used the feather gradient to blend everything. I added the text, originally a red, but I felt the white showed up more and also provided more unity because of the white of the eye. Finally, I rotated the eye to give more dynamism to the image. With the text, I played around with bevel/emboss, stroke, and character height to add more presence to the text. Then I removed the bevel/emboss because the letters didn't stand out so much in a small thumbnail size image (what most online cover images will be). There are probably more things I could do, but I had a lot of fun. I'm really getting the hang of layers in PhotoShop. It allows for a lot of experimentation without messing up what works.

The one below was my first try. I just didn't feel good about it. Not as much dynamism--in my opinion, anyway.

• "Who Listened to Dragons," 9,500 words.
• "River's Daughter," 2,500 words
• "T 'Uk's Dilemma," 1,200 words

The other two cover's aren't really necessary, but I added them inside the book to front the stories. I can also add them for "extra images" to go on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

All three short stories are set in the Dragons of Blood and Stone series reality, the setting of The Stone Dragon.  I also found an image that I think will be great for the SD sequel, Dragons of Blood and Stone. I hope to start working on that by spring at the latest.

Right now I have the e-book uploaded to my Kindle, and I'm going through it for a last time, looking for little errors and formatting issues. I wrote about this process in my blog post "Kindle as a Writing Tool."

Adding photos makes the process a little more tricky, especially when uploading to different sites (Kindle and Smashwords). Sometimes you just have to say, "This is as good as it's going to get with the current technology."

I plan to publish the books on my birthday, this Thursday, February 2. If I can feel comfortable with the e-formats, then publishing the stories will be my birthday present to myself. At this point, I think I probably won't make that birthday goal. I don't want to lower the quality of the product for an artificial deadline.

I've also been enjoying making covers for the stories. The three stories will be published under Who Listened to Dragons, but I made covers for each story to front the short story in the e-book.

I like the Dragons of Blood and Stone image. It connects with the cover image on The Stone Dragon. This was a quick version of the cover. I think I can make it better with more time, but having the cover is a real inspiration to start Draft 2 of the novel!

I'm also playing around and making banners for advertising. Here's one I've made for the e-book. It's smaller because of the size required for the half-banner advertisement. I'll change it to use the new "blue" image, but I was practicing using a sideways (horizontal) format.

These will be the first publications that I've used online stock photos for. That is a fun experience, looking through huge catalogs of images to find one to use. The price is really inexpensive, too.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Kindle as a Writing Tool

In the movie Finding Forrester, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist William Forrester says about writing, "You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head."

That's one important thing the Kindle does for me as a writer. It allows me to objectify my work, to look at it with my head, rather than with my heart. It allows me to look at my writing as a reader rather than as the writer. When I see the story on the Kindle screen in the same format as all the other books I read, I slip into my "reader mode" much more quickly and read the story more with my head. Seeing the story through a reader's eyes is an important gift that Kindle gives.

You may ask, "What about a Nook or iPad or some other reader?" My response is that the Nook I owned (now used by my wife) was perfect for reading, but I found the note-taking and note-viewing functions not as practicable. I cannot speak for the new Nooks or for other readers or tablets. I do know, though, that the Kindle makes it easy to highlight and to take notes, and when I look at the notes, they are in a single list, the note and original text placed together, so that I can quickly go through them. Kindle's note-taking function is another powerful tool that the reader provides to help me as a writer. After reading and taking notes on a piece with my Kindle, I am able to sit at my computer and use my notes to make changes on the original file. After that, I can convert the file to a mobi file and start another round of revision.

The third reason owning my Kindle helps me as a writer is that I now tend to write in Word with the knowledge that I will convert to an e-format. This makes the final publishing steps of creating the ebook much easier. Some of the glitches that show up can either be fixed or at least noted for fixing in the final stages. I've found that adding poetry to the prose piece demands that I work with the HTML file when creating the published mobi (or epub) file. Such glitches show up during the drafting process, so the final published work usually requires fewer formatting revisions once it is uploaded to Kindle.

My Kindle provides a user-friendly device for a work in progress to "make it look different." I've also printed hard copies of my writing, moved from double space to single space formatting, and saved a file as a PDF and then read the work with Adobe Reader. All these techniques allow me to objectify my experience of revision, to increase the "writing with the head."

The Kindle reader just makes it easier in addition to providing a preview of how the piece will look on a reader. Finally, I also can use the mobi file to send the work to beta readers. They can make notes and then move the file from the Kindle to their computer and send the file back to me. In all honesty, though, I also send PDFs to beta readers because the comment function on PDFs is so slick.

I like my Kindle, both as a reader and a writer. Discovering its utility in the writing process was an added bonus. It's pretty great just as a reading device.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Email Signatures and Marketing for Independent Publishers

How many clicks through links does it take to get to your novel?

I counted mine from my email signature, and it was three or four, depending on reader choice. Too many.

I also wanted to add the image of my novel to my signature. Using Gmail, it was not as easy as other email services, perhaps, but I've lowered the steps to two, rather than one, which isn't bad.

My email signature will look like this:

Dream magic is the most dangerous of magics because it is so difficult to control.

"The Stone Dragon will challenge the reader to think about the power of thought and attitude and their effect on the place we forge for ourselves in our world."

"There is an underlying theme of consciousness throughout the book and while Glimmer is on his many adventures. The ending of the story is fantastic and certainly doesn't disappoint."

Amazon (Book and Kindle)
Barnes and Noble (Book and Nook)
Smashwords (e-book)
Tom Kepler Writing (Blog and Website)
Also available through Apple, Sony, Kobo, the Diesel eBook Store, & eBooks Eros

The image, the short pitch, two excerpts from reader reviews, links to buy, a link to my website, and a comment on other sites for purchase.

This seems professional and unobtrusive--and is only one click from the store. 

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Giving Thanks for Time to Write

Thanksgiving vacation is a little over a week away now.

I get five days off, but for me it is not just the time for rest and rejuvenation. Thanksgiving vacation has become a time of beginning a new writing project or of providing a significant boost to a current project. It's practically a tradition now.

I thank the gods of school vacations for that opportunity.

In sports there is a term, momentum. I think that term applies to writing also. I know, anyway, that when I write regularly on a project every day, it begins to linger in the air around me. Everything applies and references that reality. Ideas come to me, and I have time to apply them, to bring them to the page (computer file!) before they get distracted and flitter away.

This Thanksgiving I want to finish the first draft of "Who Listened to Dragons." I'm excited about the idea of publishing a short story on Kindle and then selling it for $.99 as a short work that introduces a longer work--The Stone Dragon.

I also am excited to begin looking at the first draft of Dragons of Blood and Stone to see how the second draft should go. I've run off a hard copy--267 pages--something I don't normally do, but I feel there may be some structural changes that having actual pieces of paper may help me effect.

I also look on the days around Thanksgiving as a time to reflect on the year's activity of spring and summer. Maybe that's my gardening self stepping forward. After the harvest, it's good at autumn to relax and enjoy the moment.

I hope for all of you to enjoy the moment and harvest something this season beyond the launch of the Christmas buying frenzy.  We deserve more than that.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

The Stone Dragon To Be Published in October

It's been about two weeks since I've last posted--the longest I've gone in the almost two and a half years I've been writing this blog: time well spent, though!

Here is the current skinny on The Stone Dragon, my soon-to-be available fantasy novel.

• finished with the second proof of the novel--cover image tweaked and a few small adjustments to the book interior
• metadata (info to Lightning Source, the printer/distributor about the book) adjusted, so the title can be accepted for printing and uploading to Amazon and Barnes & Noble this next week
• books ordered by me for marketing next week
• Smashwords ebook tweaked to fix the minor errors found in the book proof--the book is now in their Premium Catalog and distributed to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, the Diesel eBook Store, and more
• working on the Kindle version--should have it up in a week
• updating online connections: Goodreads, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger
• considering the timeline for a virtual book tour
• identifying sources for information about a PayPal "buy" button for the novel's page

Those of you who know how--be sure to remember the "share" and "tweet" buttons! And, of course, email, the grandparent of virtual information exchange.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Evaluating Independently Published Books: a Rubric

Some fellow writers and I discussed the idea of promoting on our blogs great books to read by independently published authors.




I am all for that idea: a way of sorting out the excellent reads from those books that are unfinished-yet-still-published books--books still needing revision or editing to truly shine.

If I am going to evaluate and promote independently produced books (indie books) on my webpage, it seems only reasonable to explain my process of evaluation.

Before I get into specifics, I should mention that a book needing proofreading will not receive a higher rating than three stars. Many errors in following the conventions of writing intrudes on the reader's appreciation of the book and should not receive higher than an "OK" rating. It may even receive a lower rating.

This is important for me as a teacher: if I am encouraging students to "learn the ropes," how can I rate a book as "quality" if it ignores the conventions of writing for no good reason? It would be inconsistent with my teaching goals of training my students to be competent, skilled writers.

*****  (5 Stars): Mastery of vision, style, and execution. (To Kill a Mockingbird)
 
  **** (4 Stars): Quality, professional excellence. A memorable book.

    ***  (3 Stars): Readable, perhaps enjoyable, but ultimately just "OK."

         **  (2 Stars): Significant weaknesses mar the book and interfere with reading.
          
            *   (1 star): If you finished it, you deserve the royalties.

I don't usually employ stars when writing reviews for this blog. I prefer to just write a meaningful reaction to the book--to "use my words." However, Smashwords, Amazon, Goodreads, and other book sites employ this method, so I've included a scale.

All books listed as "Great Indie Reads" will have received either four or five stars. I know that all books aren't as powerful and compelling as To Kill a Mockingbird or Of Mice and Men, but the books I identify as "Great Indie Books" will be ones that, in my opinion, express the highest standards of our language and encourage us to think and evolve.

(Note: I receive no payment for books reviewed, although I may receive a free book or ebook.)

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Evolution of a Book Cover

Here is the cover for my novel The Stone Dragon.

I'd like to share its evolution with you--one that was a step-by-step progression, aided by friends and online suggestions.

The first version of the novel's cover was composed on a Word document, using a borrowed photo from the web. It was a personal-use visual for me as I revised the novel. The background was a plain white, the image was that of the "dragon" above but as a plain rectangular photo, and the font was Papyrus. It did the job--I looked, revised, and planned.

Then I decided to get serious and contacted the photographer, French photographer Suzanne Bonneford, and boldly asked for permission to use the image for my book cover. Permission was granted for two photos, the original jpgs were emailed to me, and I was in business!

Working with PhotoShop with my first novel, Love Ya Like a Sister, taught me quite a bit about the process. Once the book block text was fairly complete, I then sent to Lightning Source for my cover template. This allowed me to start laying out my cover, the template lines providing size boundaries.

The template came with all the margins that structured the correct placement of the front, back, and spine of the book. It also determined "safe" spaces for edges for slight shifts of the cover when it was printed.

The cover background was still white, and with a comment from my wife, I realized that a stone background would be good. With that idea, I biked to a local stone retaining wall and looked at individual stones and their patterns until I found one that I liked. I took the pic and came home with it.

Playing with contrast with PhotoShop soon gave me the basic background. Then I had to learn how to cut the hole in the background for the "dragon" to peek through. This was both fun and tedious--making the hole the right size and following the grain of the stone to make the hole look more natural.

The next big break-through was giving the wall a "drop shadow" effect. This provided a lip to the hole and made it look more three-dimensional.

Comments from online groups prompted me to change the font to "Charlemagne," a bolder and more chiseled font.

Finally, my tech friend helped me lighten and strengthen the colors of the "dragon's eye" so that it would dominate the cover and not be washed out and lack strength in relation to the wall and type.

That is the process. Time was an essential element--time for me to grow in my skills as to what was possible, and time to live with the various versions and to then see more options.

Designing a book is very different than writing a story. Both creative processes are challenging and fulfilling. Becoming a publisher has been a real growing experience for me. And, as a bonus, I'm already finding ways to incorporate my new knowledge into my teaching.

The Stone Dragon will be available sometime in October.

Copyright 2011, by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Book Review: Making a Name and Other Stories, by Rosanne Dingli

There's a certain magic when a writer masters the short story form--as if one can see the cosmos in a cup of tea.

That was my experience as I read Australian writer Rosanne Dingli's Making a Name and Other Stories, that of seeing the world through the sharply defined circumference of a cupful of words.

The stories, set in Europe and Australia, often revolve around the artistic world. Painting, writing, and music either form the focus or enrich the texture of the stories. One enters the world of the characters and is almost hesitant to continue, as if intruding on the privacy and intimacy that is revealed, whether the setting is an artist's flat in France or an isolated farming station in Australia.

It may be that "At Dirrunbirdum station, everything was much the same as usual" in "Rainstorms," or that "What surprised me most of all was the dust" in the story "Dust Gathered in an Afternoon," or it may even be that "Portia is sitting in the garden because she doesn't like the smell of frying onions and we are having a quarrel," but in every case, there is a mystery, an individual secret that leads and entices, leads to the next paragraph.

The characters seem exotic, even when they are ordinary. This is due to Rosanne Dingli's ability to describe the individual uniqueness of the characters, their personal dignity and exotic extravagances. There is a revealing of personal triumphs and tragedies in these stories, of a mother who, "When she went, it was more a shock that she carried out her threat than a surprise," of Natalie, who finds a bottle: "But it was a strange one. Green glass, narrow neck, bulbous body. Very dirty. I wasn't interested," but then finds "Tiny writing on the inside of the bottle." These stories provide the reader the opportunity to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the cosmos in the tea cup.

One short story, "The Submarine," provides insight into the experience of reading these stories. As we read, we are like the characters in the story who "examine the shimmering shield, the skin of the environment they know so much about now. Although they cannot see it from the dinghy, they can sense all the action, the life and death drama taking place below them."

Rosanne Dingli, in Making a Name and Other Stories, provides us with a portal, a perspective, that engages us in lives and loves that we have not quite seen that particular way before. Perhaps we will find out what the travelers in the submarine realize: "They have no real destination, of course. That is the whole point of the book, and the reader discovers this about halfway through."

Making a Name and Other Stories

 Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

E-book Review: Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon

I truly love the storyline of this novel, but unfortunately, a storyline and a novel are two different things. 

Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon, a novel by Erik Gustafson, is available through Smashwords for 99 cents.

It is a novel that contains an exciting story in an imperfect format. There are numerous proofreading errors throughout the book, so many that at one point (after a couple chapters) I was ready to abandon the book.

The book is told from the first person point of view, but the first fifty pages contain too much summary of the main character's life with too little immediate description and action. Once the main character's life scrolls out to high school graduation, though, the narrative becomes more immediately focused on the moment rather than panoramic overviews.

That is to say--the story gets interesting.

The plot revolves around a young boy who experiences a fire tragedy and is "haunted" by the experience for years after--literally, as it turns out. Willy (or Liam, since he changes his name), aided by his stalwart friend Kenny, set out to solve a mystery, and their paranormal adventures finish the last two thirds of the novel.

A fire that burns through the years… Somehow six-year-old Willy survived a huge fire. The memory of the flames engulfed his childhood and haunted him for years. Terrible secrets that should have burned away have come back. Now an adult, he must return to Iowa, with his best friend by his side, and confront the evil that haunts him. The dark secrets that await them threaten their very lives.

As the story unfolded, I finally said, "Never mind that Gustafson doesn't know how and when to use the past perfect verb tense. Never mind the run-on sentences, the misused words, the lack of capitalization and poor punctuation. I'm enjoying the story!

Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon is a great story desperately in need of an editor. All that creativity and effort was left just short of being a tight, suspenseful thriller.

Here is a note to Erik Gustafson, the author: The joy of ebooks is that they can be edited and easily uploaded again. Smashwords allows this for free. I don't begrudge the cost of the book at a penny less than a buck--and I did enjoy the story--but there is a great difference between what could have been and what is.

I've never gone the "star route" in evaluating books, but I give this novel two stars out of five. Oh, but how I would have loved to have given it more!

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Book Review: Dragon Cloud (e-book)

Middle-Grade fiction, fantasy, 28,353 words

 Denise Huges Lewis

a free e-book at Smashwords

Tazure, a young dragon, undertakes a mission to find a magic pearl that his father hid on Earth centuries ago. It will save his dimension, Draggonfeld, and Earth from the evil Dragonscar. Wounded, Tazure gets lost on Earth and kidnaps Jase, 15, and his sister, Megan, 10. The children help Tazure, not realizing that they will face death when they are separated in the land of dragons.
 

***

Reading a middle school book (around grades 5-8) requires a certain level of intellectual focus by an adult, at least for me. I found that true of Dragon Cloud, but that is not necessarily a criticism. The human protagonists are aged ten and fifteen, after all. And even Tazure, the dragon, is an adolescent. I think this book would be better for the lower end of that middle school age grouping.

I finished the book with a flash, enjoying the ending. In fact, my overall assessment of the novel is to get through the first two or three chapters, and then enjoy the rest. There is an amount of stereotyping (selfish teen boy, egghead nerd girl)  at the beginning, but this disappears as the book progresses. One could say that the characters have to start from somewhere, but the beginning was the least enjoyable part of the book for me.

Once the adventure begins, it moves with speed and efficiency to a satisfying conclusion. The world of Draggonfeld is described creatively, and the characters are developed to greater believability as the novel progresses. The action is straightforward and moves at a good pace. I especially liked the characterization of Dragonscar, the antagonist: creepy enough to be the "evil one," yet not too creepy.

Free at Smashwords

All in all, this is a tale that is about becoming less self-absorbed and learning to think and care about others. It's a good tale for middle grades to read, a good message for middle grade students to think about. There are a few editing errors in the book, oddly enough also in the first half, but few enough not to become a big negative.

Denice Hughes Lewis sets the human part of the story in Oregon, in locations I've lived and visited, and the link between fantasy and actual geography, such as Crater Lake, was an added plus to the story. And the "price" of free ain't bad, either.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Free E-books and Project Gutenberg: enrich your summer reading list

Everybody likes something for free, and that includes free e-books.

For some reason, I find it hard to read e-books on my computer, but I find it easy to use my e-reader device. I use a Barnes and Noble Nook. I'm sure other devices are just as good.

The E-Ink reader screen on my version (bought a year ago) is easy to read. The pages are not backlit, so the text is stable and much like on a paper book--at least my eyes think so.

Although I've bought some e-books via the B & N site, most of my books are free public domain e-books.

I've found Project Gutenberg a wonderful place to search for free e-books. The books are available in many formats, including ePub, Kindle, and for mobile devices.

Here are some of the authors I've downloaded:

• Zane Grey: His romances are always fun for light reading, and I love his descriptions of nature.
• Mark Twain: I downloaded Pudd'nhead Wilson, Twain's last novel and quite an interesting read.
• John Muir: I read My First Summer in the Sierra and am now reading A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf.
• Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells

Project Gutenberg lists 36,000 titles and has over 100,000 through its affiliates. (I've found Many Books to be a great source.)

Free e-books are also available through Barnes and Noble and Amazon Kindle.

Enjoy your summer reading. Even if you don't read e-books, seeing the good work Project Gutenberg is doing is time well spent.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

Backlists, Self-publishing, Breakout Novels, and "The Dream"

Backlists

Writing online for Forbes, author Alan Rinzler states: "Savvy writers – especially those with an online following — are reveling in unexpected profits by self-publishing their defunct backlist titles as new e-books." ("Is there gold in your backlist? Self-publish and find out!")

Established author and self-publishing author J.A. Konrath writes in a blog post this tidbit: "More than 95% of everything ever published has gone out of print . . . But Out-Of-Print does not equal Worthless. There is still money to be made on old books. That's why there's a billion dollar used book industry." He is currently helping author friend Robert Walker put his 40 out-of-print novels onto Kindle, "books that were with big houses, which had big print runs and distribution."

Self-publishing

Konrath's blog post "Status Quo Vadis?" contains some interesting comments, though.

An anonymous comment adds: 

I think before you [from a previous comment] post anything else on this topic, you should have to judge a writing contest of no less than 1000 entries, and then come back here with a straight emoticon and tell everyone that the vetting process provided by NY publishing is meaningless. 

I agree [publishers] don't really know what to do with e-rights, but trad publishing is still without a doubt the very best way to break into the business of writing (as opposed to becoming your own publisher/publicist/art department/editor/copy editor/sub rights department/literary agent, which is what most people reading this blog do or want to do." 

Konrath then adds:  "Dude, I've read over 10,000. And 1 of them was worthy of publication, in my professional opinion."

The consensus still seems to be that traditional publishing is still the best way to "earn your spurs" as a writer and to gain credibility in the publishing world.

Breakout Novels

Novelist Jeremy Robinson discusses publishing e-books through Kindle in a guest blog post, but his comments apply to paper books self-published, also.

So what about that advice I promised you? It’s two fold. Part one is simple, take risks. Jump in. You have nothing to lose. Seriously. You’re not going to blow a future print deal by self-publishing an e-book. The numbers aren’t tracked by Bookscan. You can make the book disappear with the click of a button. At the same time you might just sell enough to entice a publisher to make a sweet offer (if print is your goal). If you fail, pull the book and send it back to the slushpile.

Part two is not so simple. Do it right. I’m not saying I’ve done everything right. I make plenty of mistakes. But I am dedicated to putting out books that rival those produced by the big publishers in every way. I want my covers, my interiors and my story and writing quality to match, or beat, those produced by the big guns. And you should too. If you don’t, you’re not going to sell. You’re going to be disappointed and you might just give up on your dreams. Don’t be afraid to pay for a cover. To hire an editor. You might spend $1000, even $2000, getting your book ready, but if you don’t believe you can sell the 500 - 1000 copies of your book at $2.99 and make that money back you shouldn’t be self-publishing. If you don’t believe the book will sell, it probably won’t. Don’t half-ass it.

 Robinson, though, is an author who has been traditionally published. So self-publishing won't work for unknown authors, right? Robinson continues in the article:

Now, the first thing critics are going to point out is that I, like Joe, and am established mid-list author so that must be why my e-books are selling well. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Keep in mind that I was selling lots of books long before I had a traditional print deal. My books sell because I work like a bastard. I do my book covers (even Thomas Dunne asked for my help on the covers), website, interiors, marketing and PR, never mind writing the books. The only thing I don’t do is edit. If anything, my hardcovers sell well because of my self-publishing efforts.

 The Dream

Konrath discusses in the same article the status of traditional publishing and "being validated."

We've had it drilled into our heads that the only way to succeed is to follow the age old formula of: write a book, send out queries, get an agent, hope for a book deal.

Robinson, and most of my peers, have been conditioned to believe publishers are essential. And they still believe this, even though they aren't essential anymore. If we look at Robinson's five reasons for sticking with his publisher, they fall right in with the dream that publishers have been selling us for years: hope for a bestseller, the importance of an editor, getting into bookstores, the chance of huge success. Even the vanity of having a hardcover version has always been a carrot on the stick for authors. I know several authors with paperback deals who have pursued a hardcover deal for years, simply because of the prestige of having a hardcover.

 Konrath closes with these comments:

Now, I don't discount that if a book is accepted by the Big 6, it meets a minimum quality standard. It is difficult for writers to judge their own work, and acceptance by an agent is a good indicator that the work is up to par.

But guess what? Selling a shitload of ebooks is a much better validation. Getting a stamp of approval from readers is more important than a stamp of approval from a publisher.

This is a business. When I see writers acknowledging that they'll probably earn less money by signing with a publisher, but still wanting to do it, I plainly see how much publishers have perverted how writers think.

 Robinson refers to writing and publishing as a "marathon." Self-publishing is one means to gaining readership, and so is traditional publishing. What I like about these comments is that nowadays it appears that self-publishing and traditional publishing are not mutually exclusive.

Establishing a writer's website, in my opinion, requires reader access to a product to buy. Whether that product comes to the reader through self-publishing or traditional publishing, I feel the paper book or e-book to be vital to the writer's web platform.

How can you have a readership, after all, if you've provided the reader nothing to read?

Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

An excerpt from "My First Summer in the Sierra," by John Muir, 1869.". . . to see the behavior of the fall all the way to the bottom": John Muir climbs to the edge of Yosemite Falls

John Muir spent the summer of 1869 as a part of a sheep-herding expedition in the Sierras of California. He was not the herder but more a fellow traveler and overseer, "a man about the camp whom [the owner] could trust to see that the shepherd did his duty." The following passage is about Muir's first experience of the cliffs and streams above Yosemite Valley.

I rambled along the valley rim to the westward; most of it is rounded off on the very brink, so that it is not easy to find places where one may look clear down the face of the wall to the bottom. When such places were found, and I had cautiously set my feet and drawn my body erect, I could not help fearing a little that the rock might split off and let me down. and what a down! -- more than three thousand feet. Still my limbs did not tremble, nor did I feel the least uncertainty as to the reliance to be placed on them. My only fear was that a flake of the granite, which in some places showed joints more or less open and running parallel with the face of the cliff, might give way. After withdrawing from such places, excited with the view I had got, I would say to myself, "Now, don't go out on the verge again." But in the face of Yosemite scenery cautious remonstrance is vain; under its spell one's body seems to go where it likes with a will over which we seem to have scarce any control.

After a mile or so of this memorable cliff work I approached Yosemite Creek, admiring its easy, graceful, confident gestures as it comes bravely forward in its narrow channel, singing the last of its mountain songs on its way to its fate--a few rods more over the shining granite, then down half a mile in snowy foam to another world, to be lost in the Merced [River], where climate, vegetation, inhabitants, all are different. Emerging from its last gorge, it glides in wide lace-like rapids down a smooth incline into a pool where it seems to rest and compose its gray, agitated waters before taking the grand plunge, then slowly slipping over the lip of the pool basin, it descends another glossy slope with rapidly accelerated speed to the brink of the tremendous cliff, and with sublime, fateful confidence springs out free in the air.

 I took off my shoes and stockings and worked my way cautiously down alongside the rushing flood, keeping my feet and hands pressed firmly on the polished rock. The booming, roaring water, rushing past close to my head, was very exciting. I had expected that the sloping apron would terminate with the perpendicular wall of the valley, and that from the foot of it, where it is less steeply inclined, I should be able to lean far enough out to see the forms and behavior of the fall all the way down to the bottom. But I found that there was yet another small brow over which I could not see, and which appeared to be too steep for mortal feet.

Scanning it keenly, I discovered a narrow shelf about three inches wide on the very brink, just wide enough for a rest for one's heels. But there seemed to be no way of reaching it over so steep a brow. At length, after careful scrutiny of the surface, I found an irregular edge of a flake of the rock some distance back from the margin of the torrent. If I was to get down to the brink at all that rough edge, which might offer slight finger holds, was the only way. But the slope beside it looked dangerously smooth and steep, and the swift roaring flood beneath, overhead, and beside me was very nerve-trying. I therefore concluded not to venture farther, but did nevertheless. Tufts of artemisia were growing in clefts of the rock near by, and I filled my mouth with the bitter leaves, hoping they might help to prevent giddiness. Then, with a caution not known in ordinary circumstances, I crept down safely to the little ledge, got my heels well planted on it, then shuffled in a horizontal direction, twenty or thirty feet until close to the outplunging current, which, by the time it had descended thus far, was already white. Here I obtained a perfectly free view down into the heart of the snowy, chanting throng of comet-like streamers, into which the body of the fall soon separates.

While perched on that narrow niche I was not distinctly conscious of danger. The tremendous grandeur of the fall in form and sound and motion, acting at close range, smothered the sense of fear, and in such places one's body takes keen care for safety on its own account. How long I remained down there, or how I returned I can hardly tell. Anyhow, I had a glorious time, and got back to camp about dark, enjoying triumphant exhilaration soon followed by dull weariness. Hereafter I'll try to keep from such extravagant, nerve-straining places. Yet such a day is well worth venturing for. My first view of the High Sierra, first view looking down into Yosemite, the death song of Yosemite Creek, and its flight over the vast cliff, each one of these is of itself enough for a great life-long landscape fortune--a most memorable day of days--enjoyment enough to kill if that were possible.


My First Summer in the Sierra was downloaded as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg.

Rights for Muir's book are now in the public domain.