featuring the Night to Dawn books and Barbara's fiction, and other goodies

Archive for the ‘A Word with Word’ Category

The Making of an EBook

Like many other authors, I am turning to independent publishing, hence my imprint Night to Dawn Magazine & Books. That means hiring artists to do my covers, getting the book edited, shopping ISBN’s, and converting my word file to an eBook. In the case of people whose books I’ve published, it also includes sending out [...]

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A Word with Word, authors, balloons, people, Publishing, science fiction / fantasy, vampires, Writing

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Tom Johnson’s Interview with Illustrator Teresa Tunaley

I first became aware of Teresa Tunaley’s illustrations in Barbara Custer’s Night To Dawn magazine a few years back. In fact, I was so taken with Teresa’s art I went to her website and looked at the many pages of fine illustrations she had already done for book covers and magazines. It was no surprise [...]

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Artists, authors, balloons, people, Publishing, romance, science fiction / fantasy, vampires, Writing

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Lulu versus CreateSpace III

After much kvetching and discussion about CreateSpace, I’ve started to publish the NTD paperbacks through them. The latest release, Tales of Masks & Mayhem V4, saw publication through CS. Why? The short answer: money. The Global Distribution package on Lulu costs $75.00 plus whatever you pay for ISBN’s. The Pro plan of CS costs $39.00 [...]

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A Word with Word, Artists, authors, people, Publishing, science fiction / fantasy, Uncategorized, vampires, Writing

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When to Hire an Editor

Some time ago I posted the advantages of Autocrit software, and the wisdom found in Writing the Breakout Novel. Autocrit enabled me to catch repetitive words, and I ferreted out problems in my novel when I applied techniques from Writing the Breakout Novel. However, the devil is in the details, and a small press editor [...]

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A Word with Word, authors, Publishing, science fiction / fantasy

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Aspen Mountain Press – The Seamier Side of Publishing

The acceptance letter you get for your book is a dream come true for most authors, especially if the watchdog websites like P&E green-light the company. If you’re fortunate, you never have to find out any different. In the case of AMP, the other authors and I were not so fortunate.  I signed a three-year [...]

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Artists, authors, Healthcare, people, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

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Autocrit Revisited: When Your Book Needs More…

Some time ago I raved about the merits of Autocrit. I ran Steel Rose and other work through it and became ecstatic when the software ferreted out repetitions, clichés, and problems with sentence structure. I showed up at the PWC with Autocrit-edited work, and learned that Autocrit made a great proofing tool indeed. The extraneous [...]

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A Word with Word, authors, people, Publishing, science fiction / fantasy, Writing

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Revisions…and then More Revisions

Over the months, I’ve alluded to a sequel to Dark Side of the Moon: Steel Rose. Steel Rose wound up with its own cast of characters, so I can’t call it a sequel any more. Maybe this is good. At workshops, speakers have advised everyone to put their manuscripts aside for a few weeks, and [...]

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A Word with Word, authors, people, Publishing, science fiction / fantasy, Writing

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CreateSpace versus Lulu

My mother once told me that when you leave your old street for a new street, you know what you’re leaving, but you don’t know what you’re going to find. I kind of felt that way when some of my fellow small press publishers encouraged me to do my NTD printing through CreateSpace. The royalties [...]

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A Word with Word, authors, people, Publishing, serious, religion, science, surgery, deformity,, Writing

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To Lie or not to Lie – that is the question.

I’m referring to one of the verbs that give me and other writers a lot of grief – the difference between lie, lay, and laid. That and certain words that mean one thing when used as a compound, and something else when used separately, can mess up an otherwise well-written tale. And so therein “lies” [...]

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A Word with Word, Artists, authors, balloons, people, poetry, Writing

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Branding and Facebook

When a workshop leader coaxed everyone to promote their books through branding, I left the workshop confused. To my literal mind, “branding” refers to a cowboy who brands his cattle, marking it as his own, or the trademark a company uses to identify its products.  Then Facebook gave me an appreciation for branding. I’ve enjoyed [...]

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A Word with Word, Artists, authors, balloons, people, science fiction / fantasy, Writing

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