For indie publishers, there are several options for creating a print book. Like most of us, I go with print-on-demand, and I’ve used both of the two big players in the field: Lightning Source, an Ingram company, and Createspace, an Amazon company.

I’ve done print versions for seven of my nine novels, all of them through Lightning Source. LS is not nearly as user friendly as Createspace, it’s much more expensive upfront, and it gets extra costly if you have errors in your files and have to re-submit them. But the default distribution at Lightning Source is better than the default at Createspace, and the pricing structure allows me to price the Lightning Source books lower. Also, to be blunt, it’s not-Amazon. While I don’t know this for a fact, I’ve been told that independent bookstores will not stock Createspace books because they are Amazon.

A couple other differences–

First, you can get a matte cover at Lightning Source. If you can do that at Createspace, I haven’t figured out how. And second, in my opinion, the “creme” colored paper at Createspace is too creamy; it has too much color in it, compared to LS. (For novels, creme paper is generally preferred over white. The creme/white option is available at both companies.)

That said, I’ve successfully used Createspace for two books, and if you’ve never done print books before, I recommend it. It’s a much friendlier and more forgiving place to experiment.

The first book I did at Createspace was a collection of all my short stories originally published prior to 2001, called Goddesses & Other Stories. I wanted a print version, but since I didn’t expect to sell very many copies, I decided to keep my upfront investment to a minimum and go with Createspace. It’s worked out fine, but because of the CS pricing structure, it’s my highest-priced print book so far.

My second CS book is pictured above. Two Stories: Nahiku West & Nightside on Callisto and has just gone live at Amazon. It’s a mini-book: fifty-six pages long, and includes two science fiction short stories, both originally published in 2012. I don’t expect to sell many copies of this one either, and despite its size, it took a significant amount of time to put together–so why bother? Primarily because it’s an inexpensive way for me to experiment with a new print layout.

All the other books I’ve done have shared the same font and page layout, varying primarily in title fonts, header fonts, and very slightly, in the margins. But I’ll be publishing two more novels soon, and wanted to try a new layout. Two Stories was the perfect opportunity to experiment. Fifty-six pages was short enough that I could easily re-do it if I needed to, but it was quite long enough to let me know if the layout would work for the novels–and it wouldn’t cost be any cash upfront to run the experiment.

Stage 1 is now complete. I like the new layout. Stage 2 will involve applying the layout to my forthcoming novel The Red: First Light. Having run the experiment, I’ll be far less anxious over that, when it comes time to submit the print files to Lightning Source.

My first adult science fiction novel in ten years is coming in March
from Mythic Island Press LLC

THE RED: FIRST LIGHT

A near-future science fiction thriller

“There Needs To Be A War Going On Somewhere”

Lieutenant James Shelley commands a high-tech squad of soldiers in a rural district within the African Sahel. They hunt insurgents each night on a harrowing patrol, guided by three simple goals: protect civilians, kill the enemy, and stay alive—because in a for-profit war manufactured by the defense industry there can be no cause worth dying for. To keep his soldiers safe, Shelley uses every high-tech asset available to him—but his best weapon is a flawless sense of imminent danger…as if God is with him, whispering warnings in his ear. (Hazard Notice: contains military grade profanity.)

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So the novel-in-progress — a near-future thriller — went out to beta readers in November, and by the end of the month I received four sets of comments. The overall reaction was pleasingly positive, and the two issues I’d been most concerned about turned out not to be issues at all. The comments I did receive are all helpful. Several have already been applied to the latest draft as I work through my list — but you know what? Except for one item, everyone focused their comments on different aspects of the story.

This isn’t a bad thing at all. What it means to me is that the overall story works pretty darn well, that there aren’t major issues, and that different people just want more detail on different things.

Of course it isn’t necessary to address every comment a beta reader makes. It’s the prerogative of the writer to leave things as they are, to change them a little or a lot, or to go in a completely different direction than the beta reader suggests.

But what to do if one reader has real problems with a critical part of the story that the other beta readers didn’t question at all? That’s the situation I found myself in. It was tempting to shrug off the criticism. After all, no novel gets glowing reviews from everyone who tries it. Some books just don’t work for certain people.

I let the critical comments sit for a few days, and then I made myself go over them again, while reconsidering the reader, the reader’s preferences, and his reaction to the rest of the novel.

In this case, my beta reader has been an enthusiastic supporter of my work for years, he’s critiqued me before, is a writer himself, was generous with praise for almost all of the manuscript, and gave solid reasons to back his opinions. He’s also a good stand-in for the most demanding corner of my target market.

So should I listen to him, even though my three other readers were okay with the scene? My answer to that was an emphatic “yes!”

Will I be able to address all of his concerns? That was more like a “maybe.”

The challenge with the problem scene is that the protagonist needs to hold onto some level of agency — that his actions and choices determine the outcome — but because of the situation, the element of agency is elusive. Stuff is happening, but the ability of the protagonist to affect it is minimal — kind of like being tumbled in the white water of a breaking wave, when all you can do is roll with the forces around you and hope you don’t get crushed. So in this scene the element of agency is primarily in the relationships between the protagonist and other characters: how he handles the stress, the choices he makes, and what he learns from them.

I wasn’t sure I could address these issues in a different way, but I decided it was worth experimenting with the scene, to see what I could come up with.

So yesterday I spent the entire day rewriting the target section. I was completely involved with it, even while I knew that the new material wasn’t really working out all that well. I’ve been at this game long enough to know that sometimes you have to toss a lot of words around before you find the right ones to use, especially in a situation like this, where the subtleties of dialogue, discovery, and realization are so important. At the end of the day, I’d addressed most of my friend’s concerns, but I was pretty sure that what I had was kind of a hash.

I re-read it after dinner, and yes, it was a mess. So I started in on it again, just as obsessed as I’d been during the day, but I’d had a new insight, a better understanding of the possible choices and the necessary sequence of events, and at that point I was able to drop some of the complications, which tends to be a good thing for me.

So is the scene better? Well, I haven’t actually re-read it since 2AM this morning, and I’m not sure I’ve had enough sleep to properly evaluate it. But I’m glad I ran the experiment. The simple fact that I was deeply involved in the revision effort tells me that it probably needed to be done.

This has been the process for the current novel-in-progress:

Draft 1: trust the process, tell the story, make up stuff as needed.

Draft 2: fill in holes, add details, consult reality**.

(** this means “research stuff” or “use Google to consult the global hive mind.” The Internet is awesome.)

As of today I’m not quite 2/3 of the way through draft 2. So far the manuscript has grown about 7,000 words since draft 1. That number surprises me. I would have guessed maybe 4,000 at most.

Soon I’ll be rustling up beta readers…

I’m very pleased to announce that a short story I wrote last spring has been accepted at Asimov’s. “Through Your Eyes” is scheduled for the April/May 2013 double issue. This will be my first publication in Asimov’s, which is a milestone for me.

In the post linked to above I mention that “The protagonist of this story is proving rather troublesome. He’s in my head, lobbying for his own novel…” Uh-huh, and since then he’s gotten his own novel. That’s the one I’m presently working on, with the first draft just finished a couple weeks ago.

The manuscript is inconsistent, it’s full of notes, it’s in desperate need of research, and a couple of sections are just blocked out (“They struggle for the gun” “Intimate, poignant sex scene here”), but all the essentials are in place — beginning, middle, end — so I am officially declaring this to be a FIRST DRAFT.

While I like to call this novel a “near-future thriller,” it is science fiction, making it the first SF novel I’ve written since Memory — though I hasten to add it’s nothing at all like Memory.

It’s easily the roughest first draft I’ve ever done. In the old days, I would polish every paragraph, every chapter, before going on to the next. With the Puzzle Lands books I wrote much faster, but still stopped to polish and revise along the way. With this book, while I did a little backfill and a bit of revision, it was mostly a straight shot from beginning to end — partly out of fear that if I stopped and thought about it too much I would let the internal-critic take over, become discouraged, and quit. I tried to make “trust the process” my mantra, though whether it worked or not, only time will tell.

For those writers out there who might be interested in the timeline, I started brainstorming the story on June 5. Actual writing commenced on June 9, with a session that produced 1300 words. I worked on it fairly consistently over the summer, aiming for a thousand words a day. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I did nothing, sometimes I did more. At any rate, by September 2 I’d accumulated 69,000 words…which means that over the next 13 days I added 18,000 words for a first draft total of 87,000. For a lot of writers, this is no big deal. For me — I am a slow writer — this is an astonishing pace, especially given that on some of those thirteen days nothing was written because I didn’t have a clear idea of what was going to happen next. (Do other writers always know what happens next? So many of them seem to.) After revisions, I’m hoping the final word count will be no more than 95,000.

Here’s an ironic “fun fact”: this novel was inspired by a character who came to life in a short story I wrote last spring. I sent that story off to a major market at the end of May, and since then I’ve written the entire first draft and have still not gotten a decision on the story. Of course, now that I’ve said this in public, I’m sure the rejection will turn up on Monday. C’est la vie. ***

And here’s an embarrassing “fun fact”: this is the second first draft I’ve finished this year. The other is a fantasy novel unrelated to anything else I’ve done. The rule is supposed to be “finish one project before starting another,” but…yeah. I’ll get back to the fantasy novel real-soon-now — like after I get a solid second draft of the SF novel, because it’s the one that has a firm grip on my enthusiasm, and in my opinion, enthusiasm is a very good thing.

Two days ago I started brainstorming a new novel, a near-future thriller. It’s a mash-up of some ideas that came to me while writing short stories, and of course there’s no guarantee that it will go anywhere. Maybe I’ll abandon it in a week. Also, I have doubts that a general audience will find this sort of book — if it turns out to be as I envision — credible, coming from someone with an old-fashioned, feminine name like mine. But whatever. I’m kind of excited about it because I’m seeing a lot of potential. So — onwards!

The short story I talked about a few days ago has undergone some revision. It’s crept up in length (of course) and is now 5,900 words. I would have liked it shorter, but I’m not going to complain too much. It’s “done” to the extent that if I don’t rustle up a good beta reader in the next day or two, I’ll probably give in to the temptation to just send it off un-vetted.

The protagonist of this story is proving rather troublesome. He’s in my head, lobbying for his own novel now that I’ve messed up his nice life — and I have to admit I’m tempted, despite all the other projects I’m supposed to be working on.