The Importance of Proof

I've gone on a binge of watching YouTube videos of new writers unboxing the first copies of their debut book. The excitement, joy, and pride of making something amazing shows on their face. It's a special moment for budding authors, and it's addictive to watch.

As soon as I got The End of Refuge formatted for paperback, I had to order a physical copy. I was excited to see my hard work finally in print. I knew there were practical reasons for ordering a proof copy before publishing,  but what I wanted most was to physically hold my novel in my hands.

After the novelty of having my novel in print wore off a little, I was able to really scrutinize the paperback and tweak all the little things which weren't quite working. I'll go through a lot of things that I needed to change and also other things to keep an eye on when proofing your own book.

Let's start with the cover.

First, scrutinize the image of the cover. Does it look how you expected? Are all of the visual elements clear and harmonious? Can you see all the details? How about the color balance and brightness? One thing I noticed immediately was that my cover was that it was really dark. The image I used has lots of bright saturated colors which were muted too much when I added a black overlay.

Next, look at the text. All the text on the cover should be legible. Proofread for spelling and grammar. Make sure none of the text is too close to the edges and correctly placed. I accidently used a different font on the spine and changed it to match the font used on the front cover.

Finally, check the barcode. I'm using CreateSpace for the paperback copies of my book, and although they have a default placement for the barcode, they'll place it anywhere on the front or back cover it you specify a different spot. Make sure it's not hiding anything important or placed in the wrong spot.

Next, check the interior formatting.

Look at the headers and footers, page numbers and margins. Is everything where it's supposed to be or where you expected it? Look at the font size and line spacing. Is the text easy to read? How do all of the images and/or illustrations look? I had used the minimum recommended gutters, and the text was too close to the binding. Certain parts used a different font, and I had made it much too small. The margins were okay, but I had let Word handle widows and orphans, and the bottom margin varied wildly. One of the parts started lower on the page than the others. I also had a few scene break images which weren't centered properly.

Finally, read through the whole thing.

By this point, you've read your book so many times you're sick of it. Regardless, read it one more time. You may pick up more errors in a different format than reading on your computer screen. Even if you had a proofreader or editor comb through your manuscript, things might have slipped through or gone wonky during formatting. Some of my quotation marks were straight and some were curly. Same with the apostrophes. Also, check any other symbols: dashes, the copyright, special characters, etc. Only by reading through the entire text will you find all of these subtle errors.

My proof needed a lot of work. All those little post-its sticking out were corrections I had to make. By the end, I ran out of post-its and just dog-eared the pages that needed attention. Don't dismay if your proof copy comes and you need to make lots of changes. It's worth the time and effort to put out the best book that you can.

Strategies for Combating Writers Block

I have a confession to make. I'm suffering from a serious case of writers' block. I've gotten to a point in my manuscript in which I know where I need to go but just can't figure out how to get there. Usually, I try not to sweat it when I get stuck. After a couple days, I'll puzzle out what needs to happen next or how the characters will surmount the challenge I gave them. But until then, I need to keep in the 'writer mindset' or else I'll lose serious momentum. So, what can a writer do when they just don't know what comes next in their manuscript?

Read

Reading lots of books helps writers hone their craft. Now that I've been writing for a while, I try to read critically. How does the author describe the characters, move the plot forward, and handle dialogue? By reading from a writer's point of view, you can start to uncover the mechanics behind the story and learn what works really well and what doesn't.

Write something else

Like this weeks blog post! Or write a review for each of the books you've read recently (do this regardless; it really helps out the author). Take some time to write a short story or some poetry or whatever sparks your interest.

Now, I'm not saying take this as an opportunity to start another novel. You don't want to start up something that's a major time commitment until after you've finished drafting your current novel.

Do a little bit of research

As a sci-fi writer, I like to write about science stuff which I'm not already familiar with. When I get stuck writing, I'll use some of that time to research a science topic that I want to incorporate into my story. I've heard that you should "write what you know," which I take to mean that I should learn more so I can write about a broader range of things.

Help other writers

The great thing about indie authors is that we help each other out. I try to go onto writing forums and contribute something useful. I've learned so much from other writers, it only makes sense to share what I've learned as well.

There are a ton of resources out there on how to beat writers' block. I know it's unusual to embrace it, but I've found that I can never stay away from a work-in-progress for too long before I know what should happen next.

What do you do when you encounter writers' block? I'd love to know!

Book Review: The Gender Lie by Bella Forrest

The Gender Lie by Bella Forrest
My rating: ★★★☆☆

I really enjoyed the first two books of the Gender Game series, so I had high expectations for The Gender Lie. I was pretty disappointed even early on in this book.

The Gender Lie picks up right where The Gender Secret left off. Viggo is unconscious and needs a magic laser to heal him, while Liberators have taken over the underground facility. Needing their help to get the laser which will cure Viggo, Violet teams up with them on a covert mission.

Retrieving the laser is only the first third of the book. After that, the story and pacing fall apart. They discover there's a bomb (!!) and within the next page, they call their tech guy who knows all about bombs and after snipping two wires the threat is over. (mouse over to view spoiler) Then there's another bomb which they have to quickly disarm later in the story, but at that point, Violet is a bomb expert, so no big deal. It becomes a series of events with no forward momentum, giving the reader no real reason to keep reading.

I was under the impression that at the end of The Gender Secret, a war between Matrus and Patrus was inevitable, but somehow that's not the case. (?) In the end, there's a big reveal that just doesn't make any sense. Looking back over the events of the story, nothing really lined up with the reveal at the end. There could have been at least a little foreshadowing that something else was going on. A lot of the characters' motivations just don't add up.

At this point, I don't really care what happens between Matrus and Patrus, but I do want a conclusion for Viggo and Violet. I'll be picking up The Gender War, but my expectations are much lower going into the next installment.

Check out all of my book reviews!

How I Made an Animated Book Teaser

I know book trailers are a thing, but to be honest, I haven't seen too many of them. I'm not sure if they're helpful for book promotion or not. Recently, I had an idea of a teaser for my novel that I wanted to make, but it would only work in an animated form. And since I spent some time trying to make an animated cover in GIF format, I decided to make a teaser GIF. Here's what I did:

Get some images

I like using lots of images in my social media, but there are times when I don't have the kind of picture I want and don't have the means of taking one. That's when I rely on stock photos. I use Pixabay because they have a ton of photos, a search function, and it's free. I grabbed a grungy looking picture to use for my background, added a picture of my cover, and that was it. I actually used a 3D book image with my cover. I'm not to go in depth on how I did it, but this video shows how to make one.

Make the Frames

I opened up Canva, an amazingly simple graphic design tool, and uploaded my two images. I originally used the Facebook Ad template, but it made a file which was way too big. I ended up scaling the image size down to 506px x 265px. Use whatever size works for you, this is just the size I decided on.

The frames I used were really simple. I had the background and some text, and that was about it. Since I wanted the text to fade in line by line, I copied the page with all the text and deleted a line in each new image.

Once I had all the frames I needed, I downloaded them then went to the next step:

Add some animation

There are a lot of free gif creator tools out there. I use ezGif.com. Click the GIF maker tab, choose the frames we just made, then click upload.

From this point, I just rearranged the frames and changed the delay. Delay is how long the animation displays each frame in milliseconds. I made the frame with the cover image longer and kept the rest pretty short.

You could leave it at that and just click "Animate It!", but ezGIF.com can also add nice fading between frames. Just click the "crossfade frames" box under Effects. I use the default fader delay and frame count, but you can tinker with the setting and find what works best for your project. This does create a bunch more frames for the GIF leading to a much larger file, but I think the aesthetic quality it gives is well worth it.

Since my GIF was huge, I clicked the optimize icon and applied one of the compression methods (I used lossy GIF 30) to shrink down my file. I wanted to keep it under 5MB so I could share it on Twitter. Just right-click or control-click and save the image to your computer.

Share with the world!

With my completed GIF, the next step will be to share it. I use Giphy to host animated GIFs because the site makes it easy to share them on FaceBook and Instagram.

And without further ado, here is the book teaser I made:

So that's it. That how I made my teaser. If you make one, please share it with me on Twitter or my FaceBook fan page!

Book Review: Lawless by Tarah Benner

Lawless by Tarah Benner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I seem to be on a streak of reading dystopian novels with strong female leads, but when Amazon recommended yet another one... Naturally, I bought it and couldn't put it down.

Lawless follows Lark, a woman who was on trial for murdering a man who was trying to rape her. Instead of taking her chances with a jury, she takes a plea which allows her to serve her sentence in a prison colony where the inmates work together to support the prison population. Lark is enticed by the promise of living in the open air with no walls or cells holding her in.

But it's still a prison. Lark finds her place in the women's colony hierarchy, but gets into fights trying to protect her friends. She spends most of the book bruised and bloody from one altercation or another.

The book also follows Soren, an inmate in the men's colony. He's found a way to spy on Lark through the fence separating the men and women and starts sending messages to her. When he notices that the number of guards watching the exterior walls keeps dwindling, he decides to use this as his opportunity to escape.

I really loved Lark's character. She's fiercely protective of the people she loves and is a capable woman. Soren seems to be the male version of her: also resourceful and very protective of his group of friends. Their relationship grows slowly over the book, but they had a 'star-crossed lovers' vibe that I wasn't too fond of. Still, I found myself rooting for them through the book.

The story doesn't turn dystopian until the very end, and that part seems a little tacked on. The story could have finished right after they tried to escape, but I understand the author's decision to set up the hook for the next book in the series.

My favorite part was the setting. The prison was carefully thought out and the society formed by the inmates felt authentic. None of the inmates were convicted of violent crimes (except for Lark) and their ability to work together and get along was believable. The author did a lot of research, and it really shows in the dynamic world she's created.

If you're a dystopian lover like me or just want a good read, I highly recommend Lawless. It was a fun read with enough depth to keep me engaged. I'll definitely pick up the next book in the series.

Check out all of my book reviews!

How to Make Goals (Writer Style)

I have an updated post on making and achieving goals here.

Happy New Year, friends and readers! In each new year, I find myself thinking about new year's resolutions and what I want to achieve in the coming year. 2017 will be an exciting year for me since this is the year I publish my debut novel, The End of Refuge. So what are my resolutions for 2017? I plan to publish my second book this year along with a lot of other activities to help me become a successful author. Something else I want to do is get a third book ready for publication. I thought I'd use this resolution to illustrate how to make goals.

The joke in high school was that health class only taught the dangers of sex and drugs. Naturally, I got the teacher who was serious about health and taught us about lifestyle diseases, CPR, nutrition, and making goals. He wanted all of us to not only be healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, but also look after the health of others.

When he came in one day and announced that the next topic we would cover was how to make goals, I couldn't help sneak in an eye roll. There were no rules for making goals! Just say what you want and that's your goal. Simple as that, right?

Wrong.

Picking a nebulous goal like 'getting healthy' or 'become a successful writer' really sets you up for failure. There's no real benchmark for ultimate health or success, so there's no real end to reach. Plus, health and success are not quantifiable, so there's no clear way to measure progress towards your goal.

In order to reach your goals, you need to be mindful of what you pick for your goals. Here are the steps I use to make and reach my goals:

Be Specific

Of course, I want to be a successful writer, but when choosing a goal, it's best to be specific. What's something that I need to achieve as a successful writer? Write a novel.

Make Sure It's Measurable

In my post about the steps after NaNoWriMo, I outline the steps I go through to get to a finished manuscript. Getting through each step is a great way to measure how far I've gotten in writing my novel. Finishing each step gets me closer to my overall goal and lets me know I'm actually making progress towards achieving it.

Be Realistic

If you're just starting out at writing, finishing a novel may be too daunting as a goal. Goals should be a challenge, but still something you can realistically achieve.  I'll have to work hard to finish a book this year, but I know I can do it. I also know that I would never be able to finish an entire six book series in a year.

Pick a Timeframe

Without a timeframe, there's no pressure to work towards your goal every day, and the way to achieve goals is to work on them every day. This is what's so great about things like NaNoWriMo: they inspire us to work on something every day.

Set Up Rewards

And I'm not talking about a sense of achievement for reaching your end goal. You need to reward yourself for every step of the way. This is part of why having a measurable goal is so important. If your goal is to draft a 100,000-word novel, reward yourself for each 25,000 (or some other number, it's up to you) words. Reward yourself with something you enjoy: a nice dinner out, a new book, an extra hour of your favorite video game. Also, I'm not a fan of punishing myself for not achieving a goal but saying to myself that I need to work on my book for another hour before watching TV helps.

Make New Habits

One of the nice side effects of working towards a goal is that you make new positive habits. By drafting every day in November, I've gotten used to working on my book every day. It takes 30 days for something to become a habit, so after November, I wake up and start working on my book every day. I've also picked up some other habits which help me as an indie author like keeping on top of social media, maintaining my website, and writing a new blog every week.

I hope that's helped some of you! What are your new year's resolutions and goals for the new year?