Okay, thanks to comments by B.E. and Sheri, I might have more info on Reedsy, which is apparently an online service to collaboratively write, edit, typset and export books for self-publication. If their free writing/typset tool exports publication-ready files properly formatted for every type of digital platform, then it's definitely a godsend for indy authors (and me!) I'm not sure that it does yet, however, so I'm hanging onto my reservations.
The money for them evidently comes from hiring one of their freelance editors -- I'm thinking ala Upwork, where Reedsy takes a cut from every transaction. I can't confirm this. I had to watch a video simply to find out the editor thing. There aren't any rates for these editors listed on the website; you have to request a quote. They also limit the number of editors you can contact to five at a time (or possibly five period) for a quote. This is still beyond annoying to me. I also could be wrong about what I just typed, too.
You know what frustrates me most? That it takes me three days and about a thousand clicks to find out information that I'm still not sure is correct. A simple About page with the information printed in text would assure me that I'm not dealing with a bunch of college kids running something out of their dorm room. Bottom line, be careful. Read the fine print, that is, if you can find any.
Showing posts with label huh?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label huh?. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Monday, December 15, 2014
HoHoHum Ten
Ten Things I Hate About Your Holiday Story
24/7 Bliss: The arrival of the holidays has mysteriously transformed your entire crew of non-religious, deeply-flawed, potentially interesting characters into a quasi-Borg Hive of Happy People Who Must Do Charitable Things and Make Deep Personal Sacrifices to Surprise That Character They Couldn't Stand Before Thanksgiving. They also seem to infect everyone they meet with this Be of good cheer or you will be assimilated nonense, too.
Behaving Perfectly Pets: Dogs, cats and other pets in your holiday story seem to spend all their time cuddling small grabby children, fetching wrapped presents and looking adorable as they pose by the decorated Christmas tree, instead of what they'd really be doing, like biting those children, gnawing or peeing on those presents, and trying to climb up or knock down the damn tree.
Chesty Chop: I know your male protag has an awesome-looking chest, and you like to show it off every ten pages, but sending him out shirtless in subzero weather to chop firewood just so his lady love can sigh over his pecs from the window? Really?
Death Takes an Extended Holiday: Doomed characters never expire on Christmas Day -- in fact, no matter what shape they're in, no one does. Anyone destined to buy the farm does it at least a month before or the day after. In the case of the Dec. 26th RIP, they must of course have an utterly magical Christmas that they declare was the best of their life right before they drop dead.
Give Me a Break: Everyone receives marvelous/wonderful/awesome gifts in Holiday Story Land. There is never anything silly or weird or cheap or inappropriate. All the gift clothes, shoes and engagement rings fit perfectly, too.
Santa to the Rescue: No matter if they're bell-ringer Santas or mall Santas or Uncle Herb dressed up as Santa, the Mr. Claus in your story will without fail provide some invaluable assistance or a wondrous revelation for your characters that a) eradicates the black moment; b) permits star-crossed lovers to uncross their stars or c) saves someone or something from imminent bankruptcy.
Snow No-No #1: Despite the fact that it's been snowing steadily in your story for the past three weeks, no character ever has to cancel travel plans, consider the possibility of road closures or even shovel their way out to the car -- which mysteriously always starts no matter how long it's been sitting out there, and is never buried under what should logically by now be a seventeen-foot drift.
Snow No-No #2: Your characters have been snowbound alone together in an abandoned cabin long enough to have wild monkey sex on every available flat surface in place, and constantly cuddle in front of the fireplace that never stops burning, and profess their love while making snow angels out in the yard. This is wonderful, until you consider they're also exclusively living on the handful of granola bars the heroine conveniently found in her purse which, according to my calculations, even if nibbled slowly would have run out a week ago.
Snow No-No #3: Have you ever actually had sex in the snow? If not, then you should know that at zero degrees, no matter what they're doing, your half-naked characters will begin suffering from frostbite in about ten to fifteen minutes. Guess where? So some advice: speed it up.
Stocking Stupidity: Here's another thing in Christmas stories that makes me crazy: fabric stockings full of candy hung all night from a mantle over a roaring fireplace, yet somehow they never catch fire. And since all that heat generated by the roaring fire rises up over them, why aren't they filled with liquid chocolate in the morning?
What do you hate in holiday stories? Share your gripes in comments.
24/7 Bliss: The arrival of the holidays has mysteriously transformed your entire crew of non-religious, deeply-flawed, potentially interesting characters into a quasi-Borg Hive of Happy People Who Must Do Charitable Things and Make Deep Personal Sacrifices to Surprise That Character They Couldn't Stand Before Thanksgiving. They also seem to infect everyone they meet with this Be of good cheer or you will be assimilated nonense, too.
Behaving Perfectly Pets: Dogs, cats and other pets in your holiday story seem to spend all their time cuddling small grabby children, fetching wrapped presents and looking adorable as they pose by the decorated Christmas tree, instead of what they'd really be doing, like biting those children, gnawing or peeing on those presents, and trying to climb up or knock down the damn tree.
Chesty Chop: I know your male protag has an awesome-looking chest, and you like to show it off every ten pages, but sending him out shirtless in subzero weather to chop firewood just so his lady love can sigh over his pecs from the window? Really?
Death Takes an Extended Holiday: Doomed characters never expire on Christmas Day -- in fact, no matter what shape they're in, no one does. Anyone destined to buy the farm does it at least a month before or the day after. In the case of the Dec. 26th RIP, they must of course have an utterly magical Christmas that they declare was the best of their life right before they drop dead.
Give Me a Break: Everyone receives marvelous/wonderful/awesome gifts in Holiday Story Land. There is never anything silly or weird or cheap or inappropriate. All the gift clothes, shoes and engagement rings fit perfectly, too.
Santa to the Rescue: No matter if they're bell-ringer Santas or mall Santas or Uncle Herb dressed up as Santa, the Mr. Claus in your story will without fail provide some invaluable assistance or a wondrous revelation for your characters that a) eradicates the black moment; b) permits star-crossed lovers to uncross their stars or c) saves someone or something from imminent bankruptcy.
Snow No-No #1: Despite the fact that it's been snowing steadily in your story for the past three weeks, no character ever has to cancel travel plans, consider the possibility of road closures or even shovel their way out to the car -- which mysteriously always starts no matter how long it's been sitting out there, and is never buried under what should logically by now be a seventeen-foot drift.
Snow No-No #2: Your characters have been snowbound alone together in an abandoned cabin long enough to have wild monkey sex on every available flat surface in place, and constantly cuddle in front of the fireplace that never stops burning, and profess their love while making snow angels out in the yard. This is wonderful, until you consider they're also exclusively living on the handful of granola bars the heroine conveniently found in her purse which, according to my calculations, even if nibbled slowly would have run out a week ago.
Snow No-No #3: Have you ever actually had sex in the snow? If not, then you should know that at zero degrees, no matter what they're doing, your half-naked characters will begin suffering from frostbite in about ten to fifteen minutes. Guess where? So some advice: speed it up.
Stocking Stupidity: Here's another thing in Christmas stories that makes me crazy: fabric stockings full of candy hung all night from a mantle over a roaring fireplace, yet somehow they never catch fire. And since all that heat generated by the roaring fire rises up over them, why aren't they filled with liquid chocolate in the morning?
What do you hate in holiday stories? Share your gripes in comments.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Make It Stop
Charlene was talking about beach reads yesterday over at RTB, and that got me hunting around for some offbeat opinions on what to take with the sunscreen. Which lead to yet another example of why literary books desperately need new PR.
Yes, I've bitched about it before, but the blurbs are actually getting worse. Don't believe me? Here's a book described by the Village Voice* as a beach read:
"Sued because the ineradicable graffiti from his company's "Eter-No-Mark" pens has metastasized throughout the city, young Manhattan exec Chad Roe [1] spirals into a lost weekend of booze, drugs, and self-loathing [2]; passed out, he is maliciously tattooed with his own bread and butter[3]. A yuppie Queequeg[4], his appearance repels and fascinates onlookers but is shortly trumped by the horrors of 9-11 [5], from which he staggers to a dilapidated American history theme park filled with squatters [6]partying amid the three-story stucco heads of dead presidents. Sans dialogue [7], entwining poetic captions—"the slippery meat-dream of life" [8]—with beautifully composed ink drawings [9], this hallucinatory tale finds a Burning Man catharsis at the heart of a jittery nation [10]."
First and lasting impressions, by the numbers:
1. Naming the protagonist after the egg-laden ovary of a fish does not make one the next John Irving. Please make note of this.
2. As taking an Advil, talking to friends and sipping Pepsi while working things out during a couple of productive weekdays would mean he's not really suffering.
3. Now there's irony that you never saw coming, eh?
4. Cap'n, we've got Melville sighted off the port bow!
4a. Literary reviewers, please. Read Nat Philbrick. Go on the Atkins Diet. Get in touch with your inner Rushdie. Make an appointment for a high colonic. Have sex. Have sex with someone else. Find a decent therapist and work out your issues leftover from high school. Whatever you have to do, do it and get over your obsession with this stupid fricking whale story.
5. Ann Coulter's not the only one exploiting it? Quelle surprise.
6. Squatters being a much hipper term than homeless, I suppose. Or the British have retaken the colonies and no one told me.
7. What the f-- there's NO dialogue in this novel? AT ALL?
8. I can't parody the slippery meat thing. I'm still in shock over the no-dialogue. What, is it like all exposition and setting and weather reports?
9. Aha! Close-captioned for the reading impaired.
10. You obviously never went to a Burning Man, my man.
Summary:
Okay, so despite the fact that this painfully crafted blurb left me feeling like I'd rather have a colonoscopy minus the sublimaze than read this at the beach, I decided to order the book anyway. I figured I'd write up a snappy blurb of my own to post in comparison. Also, I just had to see a novel with no dialogue.
Guess what? It's not a novel. It's a comic book.
Did you see the words comic book show up anywhere in that blurb? Me, either (and yes, I apologize in advance to everyone who now calls them graphic novels because comic book isn't considered cool anymore.) But it's a comic book, all right. With no dialogue. Which makes it . . . a picture book.
And this is a literary beach "read."
I give up.
*Link brazenly swiped from John Rickards.
Yes, I've bitched about it before, but the blurbs are actually getting worse. Don't believe me? Here's a book described by the Village Voice* as a beach read:
"Sued because the ineradicable graffiti from his company's "Eter-No-Mark" pens has metastasized throughout the city, young Manhattan exec Chad Roe [1] spirals into a lost weekend of booze, drugs, and self-loathing [2]; passed out, he is maliciously tattooed with his own bread and butter[3]. A yuppie Queequeg[4], his appearance repels and fascinates onlookers but is shortly trumped by the horrors of 9-11 [5], from which he staggers to a dilapidated American history theme park filled with squatters [6]partying amid the three-story stucco heads of dead presidents. Sans dialogue [7], entwining poetic captions—"the slippery meat-dream of life" [8]—with beautifully composed ink drawings [9], this hallucinatory tale finds a Burning Man catharsis at the heart of a jittery nation [10]."
First and lasting impressions, by the numbers:
1. Naming the protagonist after the egg-laden ovary of a fish does not make one the next John Irving. Please make note of this.
2. As taking an Advil, talking to friends and sipping Pepsi while working things out during a couple of productive weekdays would mean he's not really suffering.
3. Now there's irony that you never saw coming, eh?
4. Cap'n, we've got Melville sighted off the port bow!
4a. Literary reviewers, please. Read Nat Philbrick. Go on the Atkins Diet. Get in touch with your inner Rushdie. Make an appointment for a high colonic. Have sex. Have sex with someone else. Find a decent therapist and work out your issues leftover from high school. Whatever you have to do, do it and get over your obsession with this stupid fricking whale story.
5. Ann Coulter's not the only one exploiting it? Quelle surprise.
6. Squatters being a much hipper term than homeless, I suppose. Or the British have retaken the colonies and no one told me.
7. What the f-- there's NO dialogue in this novel? AT ALL?
8. I can't parody the slippery meat thing. I'm still in shock over the no-dialogue. What, is it like all exposition and setting and weather reports?
9. Aha! Close-captioned for the reading impaired.
10. You obviously never went to a Burning Man, my man.
Summary:
Okay, so despite the fact that this painfully crafted blurb left me feeling like I'd rather have a colonoscopy minus the sublimaze than read this at the beach, I decided to order the book anyway. I figured I'd write up a snappy blurb of my own to post in comparison. Also, I just had to see a novel with no dialogue.
Guess what? It's not a novel. It's a comic book.
Did you see the words comic book show up anywhere in that blurb? Me, either (and yes, I apologize in advance to everyone who now calls them graphic novels because comic book isn't considered cool anymore.) But it's a comic book, all right. With no dialogue. Which makes it . . . a picture book.
And this is a literary beach "read."
I give up.
*Link brazenly swiped from John Rickards.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Whitebread
It only took forty days, and endless columns about themselves, but the powers that be over at the Lit-Blog Coop have offered up their first read-this book. (Drum roll, please.)
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.
Now, I'm a little slow, and kinda confused, so maybe one of you nice people will explain this to me. We're supposed to be getting the skinny on struggling writers, books and presses from the LBC, correct?
Um, how is Kate Atkinson struggling, exactly? Did she like blow all her Whitbread prize money?
Update: To be fair and balanced -- quit laughing -- and present the other side's perspective, one of the LBC folks has offered justification for the pick. Here are his top two reasons:
"1. Kate Atkinson has not received a smidgen of coverage in the New York Reveiw (sic) of Books. 2. While Salon selected CASE HISTORIES for its Best Books of 2004, it never thought to review the book separately."
Right. Please adjust your definition of "struggling" accordingly.
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.
Now, I'm a little slow, and kinda confused, so maybe one of you nice people will explain this to me. We're supposed to be getting the skinny on struggling writers, books and presses from the LBC, correct?
Um, how is Kate Atkinson struggling, exactly? Did she like blow all her Whitbread prize money?
Update: To be fair and balanced -- quit laughing -- and present the other side's perspective, one of the LBC folks has offered justification for the pick. Here are his top two reasons:
"1. Kate Atkinson has not received a smidgen of coverage in the New York Reveiw (sic) of Books. 2. While Salon selected CASE HISTORIES for its Best Books of 2004, it never thought to review the book separately."
Right. Please adjust your definition of "struggling" accordingly.
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