Hello, Sol.
Does offering digital copies of our books through Booksie violate the Kindle Unlimited terms if we have our ebooks published on Amazon and enrolled in KU? They're pretty strict about that. I wouldn't want anyone to inadvertently get crushed under Amazon's wrath by such a violation. Simplest solution is to remove your ebook from KU at the earliest opportunity, but until then, should authors be aware the risk exists?
Thank you.
Passives have other uses, and one just bubbled up in my head: 'They were beset with problems' can set the topic, an introduction before presenting the bill of particulars. You could force it into the grammatical active: 'They had many problems', but the 'They' are passive victims either way, and the sentence has less force, perhaps due to the less vivid verb, perhaps due to the mismatch between grammar and meaning.
Problems beset them!
Boom! Done. Ha ha ha!
Ho ho ho! Tis the season!
The first three revised chapters of my fantasy novel Sister Bevenlee and Mother of Pox are posted for all to enjoy. Three regular reviews of fifty words for each will net you a total of over 32 credits. Three reviews, over thirty-two credits. Of course, with that many credits at stake, the word counts for these are some of the largest on the site. So plan ahead!
The story is coming out better than I expected. The full first draft is all posted up, so I know what revisions need to be made. I don't plan to leave my dear readers hanging. It may take me a while to accumulate the credits to keep posting these monsters, but I'm chugging along hard at it. I hope to have this round of revisions done by mid-January.
So, thirty-two credits for one-hundred fifty words across three reviews. Ho ho ho!
Go to this at the bottom of the Reviews section: New In-Line Review Replies: 0 - View All - Your saved draft should be in there. Click on it to continue the review, then submit whenst ready.
Points is available with regular reviews, too. Fifty words!
Hello, kdot.
Giant chapters are my specialty. As are typos... Oh, and missing words... But, mostly giant chapters. Though in my revisions of my Ux-Blood Trilogy, I do plan to divide those enormous chapters into four, for twenty-four chapters each book, plus the Epilogue.
I did include section breaks, though. That counts for something, right?
You're making assumptions about what them gods can and cannot do. Builder has no problem letting people climb out of windows that are not there. It's a god! In the revision, the top of the complex won't be smooth. There won't be a fourth floor all the way about. There will be walkways and balconies and wtaer vats and pipes and all sort of stuff. So if you were jump out of one of the lower suite's window's you'd end up somewhere on an equivalent floor on top of the complex. But no one ever tries, as there's a compulsion to not do that from those floors. This is what revisions are for.
I plan to have Ukee tell more from that book her tutor used to learn her all up on her letters-- Mother and Sisters, the banned book that tells tales of life at the Tower. Ukee will know before she gets there about a lot of the strange things at the Tower. And if you remember Oppa from A Duty to Sacrifice, he spoke of strange things happening at the Tower as well.
But gods are involved, so don't assume our laws of physics apply here. A tennis ball just very well might go through a window that's not there, and bonk someone on the head on the other side of the complex. But since tennis balls don't exist in this world, assume we throw an apple. Thems been throwed about a lot lately--just ask Song.
Wow, what timing. I was looking for a site like that. I just very well may have to bookmark and explore it.
Congrats, Mizz Byrd.
I'll describe the Tower better on Bevenlee's first day. She'll count the windows, and on the tour, she'll look down from the top and see the Tower sits within the complex. And more details about the roof of the complex. I think I need ventilation ducts and stuff.
Hello, ray.
It's like having a room entirely within a building, with no walls being outside walls. All the room's walls are interior walls. If you were to break through one of the room's walls, you would be in another room or hallways. Not outside. Now, if you broke through one of the building's exterior walls, you would be able to see inside the building and those inside would be able to see out. That's what a window is. Put a window in one of that interior room's walls, and you don;t see outside, you see the interior of the building still.
The suites of Mother of Song (third floor) and Mother of Grub and Mother Ukee (fourth floor) are all within the Tower complex. Their suites have windows that look out over the shadow fields and surrounding countryside. They can see clouds and sunlight, hear birds and dogs and wagons, smell the rain. Their windowsills get wet from the rain. But when you look at the complex from the outside, you cannot see any windows below the Tower's fifth floor due to the bottom four floors being within the rectangular complex. Ukee pointed out it's weird (to say the least) that everyone inside the suites can see and hear and feel outside stuff, but when they are outside the Tower, they can't even see the windows to the suite.
The garden that Mother of Builder likes to sit in is at the very rear of the complex, past the stable. But Ukee brought everyone to a hallway near the front of the complex with a wall only waist-high and arched openings that opened directly into the garden. If you climb over the wall and through an arched opening, you'd end up standing in the garden. But that garden and that hallway are separated by half the complex and the entire stable. So how can they be next to each other? How could Bevenlee hear the bumble bees doing their things? Or even potentially reach through the arched opening and touch a bee, or the flower it was on?
Same with the infirmary. It's on the ground floor. There are additional floors above it. The infirmary has no walls that are exterior walls-it's nestled within the complex. Yet it has windows that allow in sunlight and wind.
These are some of the weird things Ukee pointed out to Mother of Song, Sister Relle, and Sister Ynidi. And Bevenlee.
I don't know how else to explain it. Maybe it's just too weird from some.
Hello, kdot.
Your graphic is correct. The view from the outside does not show the fourth or third floor windows. But from the inside on those floors, you can clearly see all the way to Lake Sephalon if you're facing that way. That's the 'weirdness' Mother Ukee is pointing out to those poor innocent Sisters and Mother of Song.
As for the frost and charcoal, that's a good start. But have a lot more chunks of whiter whites, and make the blacks blackers. Chunks of white amid clumps of black. Such hair color is unusual for the Shattered Kingdoms. Add to that how thick her hair is, and you get the idea. You know, she should cut it soon, but she Did promise Ukee she wouldn't...
The missing letter comes later in the rows. Bevenlee goes over the first couple of groups earlier in the story. It's only in this post that I reveal the P row. As she goes over the letters in that row, the missing letter becomes obvious, if you wondered about their twenty-five letter alphabet. It's not anything major, but I thought at least one reviewer would comment on it.
As for the paragraph, the word 'the' appears not once. It's one of the most common words, yet it ain't not there. I spotted that on my first read-through, but only because I have a specific reason: I've written a few books and stuff, and not one of those titles begins with the word 'The'. So I knida have the missing 'the' stuck at the back of my mind.
Maybe the original date of the post is out of bounds. That happened to me a while back.
Just a thought.
Well, no wonder you haven't replied to my reviews! At least you have some kick-ass science-fiction to read. You did bring your Kindle, didn't you?
All kidding aside, get well. I work in a hospital. I see first-hand what's going on. I've been in rooms with COVID-19 patients having to do x-rays and such. So I can feel your pain. Don't rush it, though. Hopefully by summer's end this'll mostly be behind you.
Hello, Dirk.
When the characters are doing an activity that involves those repeated actions, you might mention it once at first, up front. Then say something like 'They followed protocol for the rest of the activity, bowing, praying, sitting, kneeling. Whatever is involved. That way you do mention it explicitly once, then drop it in that the characters are indeed going through the motions without having to explicitly say so.
Also, if one character has a sore shoulder or bad knees, whenever they cross themselves or kneel and stand, they might grunt or give a sign of pain. You can sprinkle one or two of these throughout. Having tied the sound to the action, the reader should understand what's happening. OR if a character has a bad heart you could say he sat while everyone else stood and knelt. Mention the activity through oblique references to other actions.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head.
And just for reference, the staff's name was Dandelion. I kept it at her side throughout the novel so when she lost it at the end (in addition to everything else in her life) the impact of that was much keener. It was probably the largest sign of her losing everything (except her money and her seedbook), not having Dandelion. I plan to open the next story with her finding a new staff.
Hello, Ray.
Look for my stories, Chainsaw, Nit, and A Matter of When, among others. Those three combined will net you near twenty credits. All that's needed is fifty words each in a regular review. That's one hunnert fifty words for darn near twenty credits! You already done reviewed up my Frankenstein-creation, ten-credit monster Unpelted. So that's out of play. But I have others that are credit-rich. And a few that are above-middling. (I like to write long. I think Unpelted is the single longest post on the site.)
Edit: I went back and checked the credit count for the stories mentioned. The first three actually do add up to twenty. A smidge over. Add Unpelted to that and you have thirty credits for four reviews. Two hunnert words! What can you do with thirty credits? Also, there's Mother of Grub, worth another five or so--though that one might be a difficult read for some.
That's pretty damn sad to hear. Like me, she was in the medical field, worked in the ED. I thought she was a good reviewer. This is damn sad.
They were all eaten by wild hogs. It was grisly. Those who have fingers left can probably type up and submit new work soon. Once the antibiotics have stopped. Those who don't have any fingers – or maybe even arms – left can perhaps learn to use their toes, or try dictating. As for me, I climbed a tree. No wild hogs in these branches!
Hello, Sol.
When someone replies to an inline review, the text box allows for various formatting, like Bold and Italics. But those options are not available for regular reviews. Is there a simple fox for this? Sometimes I'd like to use italics and bold in my reviews and replies there.
Just wondering.
Well, okay. One long-ass post rather than parts. So, at a cost of over 51 credits to publish, I present my story "Unpelted", a 16K-word monstrosity of military science-fiction set in the world of my manuscript, Terrorcruise.
A review earns you a whopping 10.36 credits. That's over ten credits for fifty words. Ho. Lee. Shit. That is insane!
Get to it, fans, friends, and readers of all ilk!
Hello.
I am close to finishing a story I plan to post here for review. I won't say 'short' story as it's over 12K words now, and I think will cross the 14K boundary, if not the 15K mark. That would technically make it a novelette. My story Chainsaw (posted here) stands at about 12K words. My new one will eclipse that length.
I am writing this post to ask you, my fellow critiquers, your thoughts on long-ass postings here at the site. Do you prefer such posts to be split and posted as parts? Or as one ginormous post, in the way it would be as a final product? Several reviewers of Chainsaw said nothing about its length-some even stopped reviewing and simply fell into the story. That may be the exception rather than the rule, though. My current monstrosity of a 'short' story does have parts; I could easily make three or four posts out of it. But I feel it loses the cadence and flow when it's broken apart. And the way it unspools is an important aspect of the critique. When it's in parts, it's harder to tell if one section drags, or another reads too fast. I don't think the final credits awarded will be any different whether it's one post or many. Would it be more work for you to make three or four reviews? Or is that offset by the length of time it would take to review the story as a single post?
What are your thoughts on this? It's probably not a bad thing I seem to be the only one with this problem. I will admit to jumping all over past submissions with large credit awards for a review, even if they're chapters mid-novel. But the largest I've seen outside of my own submissions (Chainsaw, Nit, A Matter of When, Mother of Grub) was a tad over five credits. Chainsaw alone will net you 8.03 credits for a measley fifty word review. I'm quite pleased with the way this latest of mine is progressing (though not too happy with how long it's taking me) and would really prefer to load it as a single post. But I would like to hear all y'all's opinions. One big honker or more digestible parts?
Thank you.
My manuscript posted here, Terrorcruise, opens with a Prologue. I use it to reveal the antagonist, and show this as his first operation as leader of his organization, the Black Diamond. One of his victims is the novel's protagonist. The actions of the antagonist fuel the protagonist's motivations and decisions as the story progresses.
I wrote the Prologue from the antagonist's point of view. As the story unfolds, I reveal the protagonist's point of view of the same incident. By having the incident in a Prologue, I can bring the reader up to speed on what happened without bogging down the main story, which takes place eight years after the Prologue.
For this story, I feel a Prologue serves my story better than any other option. Both the protag and antag think of that opening scene, and the way they remember things is a nice contrast between the characters. You can make a Prologue work.
Why not have an acolyte of the bad guy cause the death? If the bad guy is haunting the place where Romano lives (as seen in an earlier chapter) it would know something of this situation. Have a bad guy toady then cause the death of the lover and make it look like a suicide or such. Just a thought.
Hello.
Mariana, the project is decided by recording hours. Recording hours are determined by word count. Closure came in at about 40K words, which translated to about five hours of recording by the producer. My generic bid to attract auditions (got 33 of them) was $100-$200/hour or something like that. When I decided on the 'voice' I felt worked best for my story, I offered $120/hour for five hours of work. So, $600. The final project came in at seven hours and something, so the final cost was adjusted to just over $700. I provided the cover art, the book description (both of which were already done did up) and the manuscript. The producer supplied the recordings, all clean and consistent. ACX stitched it all together into the final product.
I had no control over the final cost, which is just under $20 (on amazon.com, anyway- probably cheaper through Audible). I don't know how much per copy I'll get until I sell one or two. I imagine I'd have to sell several hundred just to break even. The producer has already gotten his pay, so all royalties are mine, though there is an option to share royalties at a reduced hourly rate. But the final product is out there now, like the softcover and Kindle versions. My work is essentially done. In ten years, who knows how this'll all turn out.
I didn't go into this expecting to break the bank, but more to see what the process is like. If I have the up-front cash to burn again, I'll do it again. We'll see. It does get kinda costly initially, but if something works out, even modestly, there's a good chance of seeing a return on investment.
Hope this helps!
Greetings!
Decided to see how the process works for turning a finished manuscript into an audiobook.
My fantasy novella Closure is now out in audiobook format! It's available through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Here's the amazon.com link: https://www.amazon.com/Closure/dp/B07SS … d=&sr=
I used a website called ACX (which I think is a subsidiary of Amazon) to make a proposal and hire a producer, who did all the narrating. A lot of back and forth, and correcting typos (are they typos if they're spoken?), and finalizing his submissions, then I paid him, ACX put everything in a fancy wrapping that I supplied, and viola! A third format for one of my stories!
I think I'll do it for other works going forward. But boy, audiobooks are kinda pricey. Anyone listen to them a lot? I don't, really. Just curious how many prefer that format. I know some of my co-workers listen to them on the way to and from work, but I live three minutes (if that) away from my place of business, so that's not an option for me.
