Episode #191: How To Self Publish-A Bob & Ted Review

The fullest moon in recent memory was out the other night {9/27}, so I thought it would be an absolutely smashing idea to grab a couple of pics to add to my growing pile of phone pics. Not bad on the spur of the moment, eh?

While I was trying to think of a topic to write about, I discovered that I haven't done a Bob & Ted review since late July. So I figured, why not? I also figured that, since I'm making the final preparations to drop around four and a half Benjamins to produce another book, this would be a great topic to have our resident flakes Bob & Ted perform a review.

Wish me luck.

~~~~~

We find Ted sitting at his desk, jotting some notes and double checking his checklist, for he decided that today was to be the day that he was gonna take that giant first step and self publish his how-to book called "How To Earn A Full Day's Pay At Any Job By Working Less Than Five Minutes Per Day."*

"Okay, let's see: Money? Check! Graphic designer? Check! Formatter? Check! Copyright registration? Check! No interference from Bob? Ch--"

"Hey! Ted! Teddy-boy! My main man Theo! Theodore!"

Pinching his eyes with his cheek muscles, Ted lets rip with a noxious release of internal combustion remnants and says, "What can I not do for you...Bob."

Since sarcasm of any kind is lost on the man-child that is Bob, Bob continues on his path of most resistance. "So Ted, have you got that thirteen page report on why we should not change our company acronym from D.O.L.T. to D.U.L.L. completed? You know I don't like it when I'm made to look like the fool."

"Yes, Bob. Here it is Bob. Just like you wanted Bob."

Bob snatches the report from Ted's hand, and as he's perusing the contents of the report, he notices some strange bits of paper covered with markings, strewn across the desk.

He closes the report and asks, "What's that strewn across your desk?"

"Notes, Bob. Haven't you ever seen handwritten notes before?"

"So that's what that is? Must be some kind of new invention. So, you have these because, why?"

Ted internally facepalms, but outwardly, he says, "Because I'm getting ready to self publish my book."

Bob leans over and sees the title of the book Ted is pointing at. "Pffft. Who in the wide, wide world of mediocrity is going to read that?"

"You would be amazed at the amount of people who would buy a self-help book like this. It's gonna be a best seller."

"Humph," says Bob as he tries to read what Ted has written but is failing miserably due to his 4th grade comprehension skills. "So, you gonna go through one of them places where they charge you an arm and two legs to publish your book?"

Stunned at the overflowing bucket of stupid oozing from Bob's pores, Ted takes a very deep breath to clear his intake valves before speaking. "Bob....that would be spending money unwisely. I am not like my employer who spends lavishly on moronically stupid things while nickel and dimeing on things that matter. I spend my money wisely on professionals. You do know what a professional is, correct?"

Snorting derisively, he says, "Of course I do. After all, I am a professional, whereas you're just a peon slaving away for a paycheck of slight renown."

Ignoring Bob's contempt, Ted continues. "Well, I want this done right, and since I cannot even remotely perform what I want, I'm spending my money wisely, with reputable professionals in their chosen field. Unlike you, who spent gobs of money to publish a....steaming pile of....provocativeness with a vanity publisher of ill-repute. Tell me Bob, have you earned your $4k investment back yet?"

Bob again snorts derisively and turns read from embarrassment. "Well, you know, selling books takes time."

"Really Bob? Takes time, Bob? Bob, your book is so putridly bad, people only buy it when they want to give their farm animals their weekly dose of man-made fiber. Beyond that, your book simply doesn't even rise to the level of a Dick & Jane primer."

"Oh yeah, Mr. Smarmypants? You think that you're hot stuff with your book, do ya? Well let me tell you something. I---"

Ted cut Bob off at the thighs. "Bob. I have talent. You don't. I'm going to use a reputable publisher like KDP, Draft2Digital and Smashwords. And I'm going to take my time doing it. I worked on this bad boy for over five years and I'm very proud of it. Tell me, are you proud of your book, Bob?"

Bob got so red in the face that smoke started billowing from his ears and steam from under his collar. Ted waited a few more minutes to see if anything else was going to happen, but nothing did. So he casually turned back to his computer to finish typing out the particulars to the cover designer about his book cover. 

Ted was very happy with his book and the fact that it was already drumming up a lot of pre-orders, based on his highly successful blog called, "How To Turn Your Current Job Into Your Side Hustle".**

Bob on the other hand, was locked into his office, having a meltdown about not being the best book writer ever.

*not a real book, so far as I know. but in today's strange Amazon world, anything is possible.

**not a real blog, so far as I know, but in today's get rich quick schemes, there should be one.

{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #81: A Trilogy Of Love

When I had retired back in November 2020 {man that seems such a long time ago}, one of my main goals was to get back into the writing groove, which is something I haven't done since 2019.

At the time, I really wasn't in the mood to do any kind of original writing, but I did want to get something out there just the same. So I came up with the brilliant idea of reworking/republishing one of my earlier books, so as to take a crack at the exclusivity program that Amazon has with their KDP program.

The easiest nor-brainer was my book "Broken Promises", as it was in serious need of being updated. The info contained within was incorrect, outdated, and the content was kind of stale, since it was written some 7+ years ago.

The first thing that I did was to unpublish the book from Smashwords. The second thing to do was to rework and/or tweak the three stories contained, while the last thing to do was to fix everything else (author's bio, book snippets, etc. etc.). That basically took me about two months top.

All of February and March was taken up with trying to get a book cover, which is what you see posted on this page. I was able to use my usual graphic designer, Book Cover By Design, a UK based company.

I'm happy to say that I will have print version of this book, which was made possible by me picking a smaller size {5 x 8} instead of the usual standard size. The smaller size will definitely get me above the minimum page count required for a print book.

Overall, I'm looking for a mid-April release date.

And that is what G.B. has been up to for the 1st quarter of 2021.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #80: How Not To Run A Digital Business

As most of you probably have been able to ascertain from reading this blog, I've been looking to get back into the writing game after retiring from my day job late last year.

To that extent, I decided to re-do and re-publish an old e-book that used to be available on Smashwords but will now be exclusively available on Amazon.

Jumping ahead by 300+ words or so, the sticking point we had to deal with for the past two months was getting a cover. I briefly had issues with my usual designer {turns out my initial two e-mail when to her spam folder by mistake, which got immediately rectified once this particular incident ended} so I went off in search of another designer. 

After making some general inquiries to about a half dozen on what genres they did or didn't do, I found one which I thought would be good, Jesh Art Studio. I sent off an inquiry via FB on the type of genres she did and got a response a day or so later, complete with pricing and a form to fill out.

Here is where things went sideways.

I initially sent the form back on 2/22. On 2/26 I sent a short e-mail asking if she had received it. She said yes, give me a few days to produce something. On 3/5, I sent another inquiry asking for a status update as well as a billing link to pay for the cover {note, due to her response of 2/26, I made a financial commitment to get my book formatted, which in hindsight I could've easily waited another couple of weeks to do}. On 3/7, got an apology for the late response and a promise to have a 1st draft in a couple of days.

Despite another inquiry by me on 3/11, I never received another response from her. I waited a week and decided to give my original designer another shot. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There is a fine line between nudging along and being a pest when it comes to stuff like this. My original designer does say up front that can take one to two weeks to produce a sample, of which I made a mental miscue on this time around and apologized for the miscue. But this person had no such disclaimer on her website. So I was careful with the time gap of the e-mails that I had sent to her. 

But it seems in the end that she apparently decided that i wasn't worth the $300 sale. Which is kind of sad, if you think about. Graphic design, especially for book covers, is a highly competitive niche market and it's imperative that you make things as clear as they can be for potential customers about openings/length of time etc (I came across one who announced in 2019 that they were entirely booked for 2020 and weren't taking commissions until spring/summer 2021). Treating them like garbage is a sure fire way not to get any potential business from them.

But, there is a happy ending to this story, which I will be giving/showing to everyone next week.

Until then, have a happy week, just like these dogs.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #72: Where I Be? I Be Here, There & Nowhere.

Since I was in a good mood at the tail end of my last post, I thought I would continue in that same vein with the posting of pic taken from my 2nd to last real vacation that I took (2009 I believe). 

I mean, who can't help but like a happy yellow frog, right?

Anyways, here is where I currently stand with my latest project.

From the last post until now, I managed to get everything that I wanted to get done with this book done.  I wrote a new table-of-contents; tweaked my bio; tweaked the links on how peeps could follow/find me (yeah, previous version had all kinds of broken links); and added two different samples to the end. The only things left that needs to be done is to make one long document out of everything and covert it all from Google docs to Word.

The samples were important as I want to make this into a print edition as well, and in order to do it, the page count has to be 1} up there (last short book I did, What Is Life?, has roughly 80+ pages) and 2} the size of the book has to be a bit smaller than normal, so that the book can have a spine (thus the need for a minimum page count).

So all that remains of this to get published is 1} purchase a cover and 2} hire a formatter.

Ultimately we're shooting for a late Spring/early Summer publication date. I'm a bit mellower/laid back now, so that may get me a few brownie points with the businesses of choice.

And now, a preview of other potential e-book projects.

Doing the aforementioned e-book rewrite provided just the right kind of motivation/jump-start that I so desperately needed (no writer's block, just lack of proper motivation). I immediately went through what I had stashed on my current USB drive (I have others which will eventually migrate to my current computer) and found two suitable short stories to play with. Also went through my Google Drive and printed out the story that I spent 2020 working on as well.

The current idea that I got percolating is to come out with at least two more short story e-books, which means I will need to find a doable fourth. The three that I do have in the on-deck circle are as follows:

1}What A Day...: this one takes place at home where the MC is telecommuting. Alternate reality with shades of horror/gore. Unpublished 2020.

2} The Grid: This one is basically a public revenge story that unfolds over the course of a few days. Will probably tweak it to an alternate reality of some kind, where two worlds uneasily co-exist. Also unpublished and originally written in 2009.

3} Saturday: This unfolds during the course of a few hours, with the MC running a morning errand to the bank via foot patrol. Definitely takes place in our favorite alternate reality. Writing and blog published in 2009.

While I'm looking forward to get back into the swing of things, I think I'm going to concentrate on the short story thing until I can get back in my comfort zone, then switch back to the novella/novel genres again.

Until next time, always vocalize what you feel and don't let anyone stop you from doing so.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 4th

A boyish howdy and howdy to the girl who knocks 'em dead if they're alive and knocks 'em alive if they're dead, and welcome to the Abner Normal literary world of G.B. Miller, where being a moderate anything in today's world is strictly verboten, but being a craven coward running a university that bows down to the ones that they truly serve is a good thing.

Today's post will be a random mish-mosh of brain squeezin's coupled with writing topics. Let us begin at the beginning, because every post should have either one tired cliche or one semi-obscure pop culture quote {semi-obscure for those under the age of 40} contained within.

First, the prerequisite picture:

This is the skyline of Hartford, CT, taken from the office building of where I work. The buildings in the background are what passes for downtown, such as it is. The less said about that cesspool the better.

I did get some writing done this past week, but not as much as I'd originally planned to do. The original plan, hence the stay-ca that I took this week, was to knock out about 5k+ words and get through chapter six, thus finishing part the 1st of the book. However, life got very much in the way and thus I ultimately knocked out about one-third of that goal, which was roughly 1,650 words (plus or minus).

The main reason as to why the low output is that I really can't write anymore when I'm angry. Early on in my writing career, anger did indeed motivated me immeasurably. Cranked out quite a bit of slushiness in the process, so in one particular way, it was a good thing. However, nowadays, misplaced anger is a terrible thing, since the bulk of what I'm writing is not motivated or flavored with anger, and to inject that particular emotion into the mix would just be plain bad.

My ultimate goal with this particular WiP is to get to a point that, when I put it aside to get book #2 ready for publication Spring 2019, I'll be able to quickly figure out where the plot is after not working on it for several months. So I'm giving myself to the end of January to either complete it or have it at least 85% completed. Then I'll work on book #2.

Book #2 of the "Friendship Trilogy" will be entitled The Friendship Has Continued. What follows next is a short info dump followed by the particular pathway I will be following in order to get this to publication.

Book #2 takes place roughly two to three weeks after the end of The Friendship Has Begun, which is to say that we go through the wedding nuptials and the honeymoon. We do lightly touch upon a few items from book #1, mostly to refresh everyone's memory about that particular plot, since some remnants of that plot will be properly carried forward to book #3.

What I have left to do with book #2 is another one to two rounds of editing, especially since I've spent the past six months re-reading it from cover to cover and I'm finding more typos that need to be fixed as well as sentences/paragraphs that could use some tightening up.

Once I get everything to my liking as well as getting my c/c down to a reasonable level of outstanding debt, I will be contacting a freelance editor that came highly recommended to me early 2018 and that I highly recommend to anyone else who needs a good editor/proofreader, PinkProof. Based out of the U.K., not only did she do a fantastic job for me on book #1, but gave some great writing advice as well.

Once I get that completed, I will be using a graphic designer that has done my last two books for me, Book Cover By Design. She does fantastic work as well, and although I can't quite remember how I got referred to her to begin with, I do highly recommend her. She will be my go-to person as well for my books.

Of course, before getting the book cover and during the final editing process (this include the manuscript being with the editor) I will have to create that all important, all dreaded jacket blurb.

As Jack Palance would say in his version of "A Christmas Carol" (I have seen about two dozen versions in my lifetime and this one is in my top 5): Blah, blah, blah.

As always, you check me out on FB, as well as my writings either at the links on the said for Amazon and Smashwords, or @ the various cover pics on the sides.

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved