GUYS — here’s a Valentine’s Day trivia question for you.  What’s more romantic than a sizzling love story?

There’s a great deal of buzz on the Internet about Apple’s iBooks Author App. Most authors and publishers haven’t used it or refuse to use it, usually citing Apple’s EULA agreement. Controversial as it may be, the announcement of the Author app was exactly what I’ve been waiting for. You see, I’m obsessed with ebooks. More than that, I’m madly in love with enhanced (interactive) ebooks. What follows is a fiction author’s take on the EULA Agreement as well as a rundown of my experience using the app to re-release my first novel this past week. Curious about the app? Read on.

The usual way to code ebooks. *sigh*

When Spirehouse Books released my novel, Artemis Rising, last September 2011, I went all out designing that thing with specialty coding. I spent about four months learning how to design, format, and code different versions for iPad, Nook, and Kindle. The process was clunky, glitchy, and slow. I loved every minute of it (remember, I’m obsessed?), but I found myself yearning for a better way.

Until now, there wasn’t a better way. Authors often mention Smashwords as their go-to aggregator for publication. But Smashwords’ coding and design is plain and lacks the capability for enhancements. Because ebook readers are essentially still in their infancy, they are riddled issues that require non-standard coding, workarounds, or simply giving up on desired design elements because valid code won’t work.

Enter the iBooks Author App.

I snapped up an iPad and I already had a MacBook. I just spent a couple of days learning the Author app and created an iBooks 2 version of my novel, which I successfully uploaded. I’ll get to the details in a moment, but my initial reaction? FREAKIN’ AWESOME.

Here’s a rundown of the elements I used most often in the process:

Video

It took me four months of research, testing, and failure to realize I couldn’t manually code in my book trailer  (still have no idea why it wouldn’t work). How did I do it with the Author app? I dragged the .m4v  file from my desktop into the Intro Media section of the app. Done. (And no coding.)

 Photos

Took me a couple of weeks to learn how to center a damn photograph for iBooks. I kid you not. But once I learned how, it was easy! *double sigh* One of those fun glitches in the iPad coding, you know. Anyhoo, as you can imagine, dragging and dropping photos into the app is effortless. What’s really cool is that as you move photos around the page, smart rulers and arrows help you line them up to other elements. Can’t tell you how helpful this was, as I had special glyph GIFs and another large image of a map on all 28 of my chapter header pages. Whoa. Resizing is a cinch, but the app is not set up to allow you to edit the photos themselves much. I suspect they’ll expand that capability in a later update.

Fonts

iBooks fonts kick everybody’s butt. Seriously. iBooks simply has more font selection and more typographical features to add to your design. No other device  even comes close in this regard. Took me a bit to test the app’s limits on font manipulation, but in the end I just went with what pleased my eye. I really wanted to delete the chapter header text and insert my own graphical title for chapter headers, but alas, I couldn’t get it to work. I’ll keep testing, because I could handcode it (took me several weeks to figure out that specialty coding too) in the previous version of my iPad epub file. I’ve not even attempted to try any custom html coding in the Author app. To be honest, I didn’t want to bother with coding since most of what I needed was already available in the app.

Inserting text

I’ve not played with every method or tried to import text from multiple sources. I simply copied the original text from my Word file (which was properly formatted with clean styles, etc.) and dumped the whole manuscript into the app. I hear from other sources on the Internet that there are easier ways. But I was playing around with how I wanted to format chapter header pages, so I wanted to try this method and take it slow. I then added in a chapter header page after deciding that that was preferable to using the “Preface” page for a novel. Which brings me to....

Chapter header pages

Everyone knows chapter pages are where most of your design elements shine. And Apple does an amazing job here, designing some beautiful elements that take advantage of the horizontal and vertical views of the iPad. A note on the views though: in general most elements on the chapter pages must be designed twice: once for the vertical view and once for the horizontal view. And just because your design looks purdy in one view...Well, much of my previewing and editing work involved double checking both views to ensure that the reading experience was optimal all around. I spent a lot of time playing with the first chapter header page, because I knew that once I had that perfect, I could then duplicate that page for all my chapters to save work time. That was fantastic. After the chapter header pages were set, I simply added one page to each chapter and dumped my chapter text into it. Pages were added by the app to fit the text. Voila!

Glossary

Artemis Rising has a glossary of Portuguese and Latin words in the back matter. In the old method, I used InDesign to hyperlink every word and then exported the book as an epub file (a very time-consuming process). The glossary feature in the Author app is to-die-for easy to use. I highlighted each word and added it to the glossary with the click of one button. Later I went to the glossary section and pasted in each definition. That’s it. When the reader clicks on one of those special words, a little bubble pops up and gives them the definition right there. They don’t even have to navigate away from the page. Woot!

Preview

Previewing my design progress was ridiculously easy. I have iBooks open on my iPad. I plug the device into my MacBook. I hit the Preview button in the Author app. I wait a bit. Presto! The new version pops in and I get to check out my updates.

TIP: Be sure to download the iBooks 2 app on your iPad before attempting to Preview for the first time. Without it, you might run into issues. I did.

Elements I want to try next

I didn’t get a chance to use every feature in this first go-around. But I have big plans. I want to build a photo gallery of my book trailer production photos (all taken by the brilliant Beth Furumasu) as bonus back matter. I want to create an interactive map of my setting (I already have a map created in flash, but the folks at Apple are in a whiny fight with Adobe over Flash, so I can’t use it. Meh.) But I might be able to insert my own HTML5-coded map or use the interactive widget within the app itself. Still exploring that. Doubt I can find a use for the 3D widget for my novels, but one never knows. =)

Should you use the Author app to design the iPad version of your book?

Would I recommend iBooks 2 and the iBooks Author App to indie authors and/or small publishers? A resounding YES, given a couple of caveats:

• You’ve obviously got to have the hardware (an iPad and some type of Mac) and software (Lion OS X) needed. The app itself is free.
• You’ve read the EULA and feel comfortable with what you are getting into.
• You are interested in doing an enhanced ebook–it’s great for fiction or nonfiction.

My initial thoughts on the EULA Agreement controversy

The agreement itself is short-sighted and ambiguous. That goes without saying. But naysayers are forgetting one small detail that makes the current EULA’s strictures irrelevant for now: the ebook files that the iBooks Author app creates are far too complex for any other current e-reader device to display properly. In other words, you can’t read my Author-created novel on any other device than iPad, because devices like the Nook and Kindle aren’t sophisticated enough...yet.

I consider the Author app a beta. A test. A glimpse of the future. If Amazon is smart (please be smart!), they’ll hire a programmer to create a similar program and make it open to both PC and Mac users. And Barnes and Noble? They’d best get on it, too, or they’ll be the first of the Big Three to kick the bucket. I’m not even counting poor, dead Borders.

Apple’s most foolish move is to lock up their powerful programs and apps from PC users. (Anybody else think it’s ASININE that we can’t read books we’ve bought through Apple on the Web? Silly. iCloud, where’s my damn book? *narrows eyes*) But in this case, that hoarding and elitest tendency is, as I said, irrelevant. They are well aware that no other device can display this content. But that will someday change, and once again, they’ll be left in Amazon’s dust. But that’s neither here nor there.

My second thought on this: I can only sell an iBooks Author app version of my book through the iBookstore. I can sell my other versions just how I always have. I have a specially coded version for Nook and Kindle. I am curious, though: can I sell two iPad versions, perhaps giving them both a separate ISBN? One would be the Author app version and the other would be the “regular” version. Hmm...anyone have an answer on that one?

Next steps

We’ll all wait and see what happens next in this yo-yo of an industry. The potential of this app is phenomenal, and no ambiguous EULA agreement will diminish that. If you have a Mac running Lion OS X, download the app and play around with it. Even if you don’t have an iPad. Try it out and see what could one of the greatest innovations ever in the short history of ebooks.

I’ll say it again: FREAKIN’ AWESOME.

Want to see an iBooks 2 novel in action? You can download a sample or buy Artemis Rising on your iPad. Here’s a link to the book.

Let me know what you think in the comments. And if you want to reprint this blog post, feel free. Just give me a credit.

Ooh! UPDATE: This is what might make us fall into fits of glee: an open platform ebook creator! I just heard about this less than a minute ago.

One eBook Platform to Rule Them All

A company known for long-form journalism democratizes tablet publishing.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27519/?p1=A3

Caveats: It’s not available yet, still in private beta, and I have no idea what it might cost, if anything.

Cidney Swanson’s new young adult novel, Unfurl, has launched! I’m hosting her today as part of her blog tour and she has graciously shared with us her tips on how to overcome the evil writer’s block. Take a look at her book cover below. Isn’t it gorgeous?!

About the book

Against all expectations, Samantha Ruiz has survived attacks by two of Helmann’s deadliest assassins. She’s alive, but she’s far from safe. Helmann is planning a second Holocaust and wants Sam to play a starring role. Will, meanwhile, separated from Sam by an ocean, seeks a way to prevent Helmann’s apocalypse. Along with Sir Walter and Mickie, Will plays a deadly game sneaking into Geneses’ facilities, discovering unsettling clues as to Helmann’s plans. The clock ticks down as Will and Sam discover just how much they must be willing to sacrifice to stop Helmann. UNFURL, the powerful conclusion to The Ripple Series, will leave fans breathless.

Writer’s block can cover a host of issues that stem from a number of sources ranging from something as simple as fatigue to something as complex as clinical depression. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t come from anything quite so dramatic. Most of the time, writer’s block crops up when we’re afraid to commit our words to paper or when we have “run out” of things to say.

Cidney’s Secret for Success: B-I-C

Although these causes are really dissimilar, the solution for both is the same: B-I-C. Butt in chair. As in: you need to sit down and just write.

Have you ever primed a pump? There’s a campground I visit every summer where we have to do that. You pull that handle up and down a few times and it seems like nothing is happening, but then all the sudden you’re jumping backwards to avoid being drenched in icy fresh water.

Your brain is like that pump. It needs to be primed, and often it will look like nothing is happening for the first little bit of B-I-C time. Inspiration really does follow perspiration, though, and as you get your mind to recognize that you are going to go through with this activity right now, your mind will usually supply you with a few things to jot down. And then a few more.

Still feeling stuck? Here are my two favorite ways to get unstuck:

Interview your characters. You can ask them anything, really. Sit at your [writing instrument of choice] to do this, and actually write out the Q’s and the A’s. I find out all kinds of amazing stuff when I start asking my characters questions.

If you’ve truly tried, truly done your B-I-C time and you’re still stuck, go take a walk. Sometimes a little change in scenery will loosen things up. Or maybe it’s the physical motion that does it. I’m not sure. But before you take your walk, ask your brain, “So, what happens next?” and see what comes up!

Connect with Cidney at her blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

Find Cidney’s books on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Goodreads, and Librarything

Want to enter to win a giveaway ebook of Unfurl?! Enter the Rafflecopter widget below. Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Cidney Swanson grew up within spitting distance of the central California foothills and learned to drive on the crazy highways linking gold rush ghost towns.  She began her first novel at age eight; it started with “Ouch,” and she’s enjoyed creating painful situations for her characters ever since.  Cidney worked as a costume designer, clothing designer, and kitchen gadget salesperson prior to giving it all up for literature.  Cidney lives in Oregon’s Willamette Valley with her husband, three kids, a dog, and two cats and entirely too much rain.

I’m a last-minute participant in the Dreaming of Books Giveaway Hop (mainly because I love blog hops and I love giveaways!). Enter to win an ebook copy of Artemis Rising in any format the winner chooses. The blog hop lasts from Jan. 13 to  Jan. 19. I’ll announce the winner on Jan. 20. In the meantime, feel free to enter for the giveaway in the Rafflecopter widget below.

Want to fall in love?

You can within the pages of Artemis Rising, a YA historical fantasy is set in the Azores Islands, Portugal. This intense story centers on a girl torn between two faiths and two young men. Read on...

On the voy­age home to the Azores Islands, Eva accepts the pagan name of Arethusa but learns too late that her life will mir­ror the Greek nymph’s tragic end. Her mother reveals that her des­tiny lies with Diogo, the shipowner’s volatile son. But Eva has a vision of another...

When the ship founders in a storm off the coast, Tristan, a local boy, saves her life and steals her heart. Destined to be with Diogo yet aching for Tristan’s for­bid­den love, Eva must some­how choose between them, or fate will choose for her.

This is an engross­ing novel in which sev­eral strands of myth com­bine to cre­ate a com­plex yet beau­ti­fully sim­ple romance. It is at its high­est level an explo­ration of fun­da­men­tal philo­soph­i­cal questions—the debate between fate and choice, the nature of love and desire, the tena­cious and often dan­ger­ous hold of belief on the human psy­che. At bot­tom, and the rea­son why you will love it, this is a bildungsro­man about a girl find­ing her way to adult­hood and a story about two lovers both sep­a­rated and entwined by their beliefs.

Recent reviews...

Artemis Rising is an intrigu­ing and com­plex tale, yet in the hands of author Cheri Lasota, the story flows seam­lessly, gath­er­ing the reader into a world so real you can smell the berg­amot along with Eva, feel the pitch­ing of a storm-​​tossed ship, and the sweet taste of first love. Yet Eva’s world, Arethusa’s world, is one of magic, a place where themes of ancient myth and reli­gious thought meet, con­front, and strug­gle for supremacy. When Eva is ship­wrecked on the Azores Islands off Portugal, she encoun­ters Tristao, the blue-​​eyed boy who will fight for her against the beguil­ing but ruth­less pur­suit of Diogo. Be pre­pared for shocks, twists, and sus­pense when you read this story. Also be pre­pared for the exquis­ite Portuguese back­ground, its cul­ture, color, and cus­toms. With vel­vety and pow­er­ful prose, Ms. Lasota lets us see, taste, smell, feel, and hear each expe­ri­ence as she guides us through lay­ers of sus­pense, myth, magic, and romance.

—Alice Lynn, Author of Volunteer for Glory

This book is filled with a com­plex yet fluid retelling of two sep­a­rate myths that have been intri­cately weaved together in a way that it pulls you head-​​first into the story. Throughout it all I found myself com­pletely entranced by this, and I had a hard time putting down my Kindle once I got started. Only for the need of sleep did it take me two days to fin­ish. The plot itself is one that is beau­ti­fully writ­ten and well thought out, though I will admit if you are read­ing this half­heart­edly you may become con­fused at times. I adore mythol­ogy and I really like when authors come up with a cre­ative way to inte­grate them into their own sto­ries, and I can hon­estly say that I found this to be com­pletely orig­i­nal and fresh. I was famil­iar with the story of Tristan and Isolde but not that of Alpheus and Arethusa, and even now that I’ve become famil­iar with both I can see that they have no true con­nec­tions. However Lasota man­aged to pull these two sto­ries together and com­bine them in such a way that I’ll prob­a­bly never looked at them the same again. After all the emo­tions that pulled me back and forth and though I was sad to see it over, the end­ing was per­fect to me as it felt complete.

—Michelle Gilmore, In Libris Veritas

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Denise Zaky! Big congratulations to Denise and a huge thank you to all who participated in the Indelibles launch and blog hop–there were a hundred entries!

The grand prize winner will be announced soon on the Indelibles blog. If you didn’t snag Artemis Rising in this giveaway, the book is available in all digital formats and can be purchased for $4.99 at SpireHouseBooks.com, iTunes, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and KoboBooks.com.

Look forward to chatting about books with all my new friends!

Thank you!

~Cheri

Want to know more about Artemis Rising?

See larger image Artemis Rising (Kindle Edition) By (author) Cheri Lasota List Price: $4.99 USD Release date July 24, 2011.

In celebration of our official launch, we are giving away a KINDLE FIRE! If you’d like to start at the beginning of the INDELIBLES ON FIRE GIVEAWAY BLOG HOP, then please start here: http://indeliblewriters.blogspot.com/

If you are already mid-hop, then welcome to your next stop! By following the link at the bottom of this post, you can proceed to the next author (and check out the awesome, individual giveaways we are doing along the way!). If you are entering to win the KINDLE FIRE, don’t forget to make a note of the keyword at the end of every blog post — the words spell out a phrase you will need to enter the contest on the last stop.

Marketing guru Shelli Johannes Wells has teamed up with twenty-four other indie and small press authors to bring you the Indelibles.

For a limited time (only 4 more days), Artemis Rising is on sale! Did you get a Kindle or Amazon gift card for Christmas? Snag a copy of Artemis Rising at this special price while it lasts! It makes a great gift too.

I hope your Christmas holidays were filled with peace, joy and the love of family and friends. May 2012 be bright for all of you. Wishing you success in the coming year....

xoxo,

~Cheri =)

See larger image Artemis Rising (Kindle Edition) By (author) Cheri Lasota List Price: $4.99 USD Release date July 24, 2011.

Lisa Nowak, a new friend and colleague has released a sequel, Getting Sideways, to her popular Running Wide Open. The story makes a great gift for the young adult men in your life and a ripping good read for adults interested in racing. Congrats to Lisa!

Getting Sideways: Book 2 in the Full Throttle Series

Getting shipped off to live with his uncle Race was the best thing that ever happened to fifteen-year-old Cody. Then a wreck at the speedway nearly ruined everything. Cody’s making every effort to get his life back on track—writing for the school paper, searching for the perfect girlfriend, and counting the days until he gets his drivers’ license—but there’s no escaping the nightmares that haunt him.

A chance to build his own car seems like the perfect distraction. Until Cody realizes he’ll have to live up to Race’s legendary status. But that’s the least of his worries, considering he doesn’t have his dad’s permission. All he has to do is the impossible: keep Race from discovering his lie until he can convince his dad that racing’s safe.

Yeah, sure. That’ll be easy.

• Buy it on Amazon
• Buy it at Barnes and Noble
• Buy it on Smashwords

Haven’t read the first book? Running Wide Open is on sale now for 99 cents.

Running Wide Open: Book 1 in the Full Throttle Series

Cody Everett has a temper as hot as the flashpoint of racing fuel, and it’s landed him at his uncle’s trailer, a last-chance home before military school. But how can he take the guy seriously when he calls himself Race, eats Twinkies for breakfast, and pals around with rednecks who drive in circles every Saturday night?

What Cody doesn’t expect is for the arrangement to work. Or for Race to become the friend and mentor he’s been looking for all his life. But just as Cody begins to settle in and get a handle on his supercharged temper, a crisis sends his life spinning out of control. Everything he’s come to care about is threatened, and he has to choose between falling back on his old, familiar anger or stepping up to prove his loyalty to the only person he’s ever dared to trust.

Praise for Running Wide Open:

“It doesn’t matter if you are a racing fan or not, Running Wide Open will captivate you and capture your heart.” – Cari J, Amazon reviewer

“The roar of engines practically explodes off the page in this compelling, heart-thumping debut. Cody Everett is a straight-shooter with attitude, smarts, and whip-cracking wit; he doesn’t pull any punches, and neither does author Lisa Nowak. The collision of Cody and the world of stock car racing makes for a great story, one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Running Wide Open is a book not to be missed.” — Christine Fletcher, author of Tallulah Falls and Ten Cents a Dance

“The racing is easy to understand and does not get in the way of a rattling good story. I still couldn’t put it down on a re-read.” – Elisabeth Miles, Amazon reviewer

“We race stock cars during the summer and even though this is a recommended read for Young Adults, we are seniors and enjoyed every page. We can hardly wait for the sequel to come out. MUST READING!” – Maxci Jermann, Barnes and Noble reviewer

“I say read this book, it’s fun, it’s beautiful, it’s a very cool read that will give you a feel-good state of mind. Awesome read.” — L.E.Olteano, Butterfly-o-meter Books

• Buy it on Amazon
• Buy it at Barnes and Noble
• Buy it on Smashwords

Author Bio:

In addition to being a YA author, Lisa Nowak is a retired amateur stock car racer, an accomplished cat whisperer, and a professional smartass. She writes coming-of-age books about kids in hard luck situations who learn to appreciate their own value after finding mentors who love them for who they are. She enjoys dark chocolate and stout beer and constantly works toward employing wei wu wei in her life, all the while realizing that the struggle itself is an oxymoron.

Lisa has no spare time, but if she did she’d use it to tend to her expansive perennial garden, watch medical dramas, take long walks after dark, and teach her cats to play poker. For those of you who might be wondering, she is not, and has never been, a diaper-wearing astronaut. She lives in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her husband, four feline companions, and two giant sequoias.

Connect with Lisa online:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google +
• Blog
• Subscribe to her newsletter for updates about coming attractions

I’d been searching for months for the right book to do an excerpt trade with. I’d heard about this simple idea from my wonderful friend Nancy Kelley who heard about it from her friend, Jennifer Becton. Sometimes ideas spread like wildfire, and this one ought to because it’s brilliant. The concept is a no-brainer: get together with another indie author writing in a similar vein and trade chapter 1 book excerpts in the back of each other’s books. Voila! Now you have access to a brand new audience you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Cool, huh?

When I joined the Pacific Northwest YA Authors group, group member Lisa Nowak recommended I approach Laura Elliott with the idea. It turned out to be the perfect fit. I asked Laura some questions about how she viewed the excerpt trade process and wanted to share her answers with you. Without further ado...

Did you have any hesitations about excerpt trading when I first approached you with the idea? What put those hesitations to rest?

Not at all. I love to try everything. I guess if I had one doubt about the process it was my own skills at programming your beautifully formatted excerpt of Artemis Rising into my ebook, Winnemucca. I enjoyed reading such a beautifully formatted ebook and learned from you in the process of adding your excerpt to Winnemucca. Because you are so knowledgeable about the process of formatting ebooks and enhanced books our collaboration was like taking a little class—my favorite class. Thanks for putting up with my learning curve, Cheri! This how my ebook world broadened as a result of our collaboration:

I made epub files out of my books, Winnemucca and 13 on Halloween, (book 1 in the Teen Halloween series) and uploaded them to the Barnes & Noble site so that they are now available for the Nook. I didn’t want to go the Smashwords route for a number of reasons, so I previously only had my books available for the Kindle and as paperbacks. But because I wanted to help spread the word widely for Cheri and her book, as her books were more widely available on different ebook platforms, I used Calibre to make the necessary conversions. As a result my books are available to a much wider market.

I found that xhtml is easy for me to understand since I was an html programmer. But I’m all thumbs compared to Cheri, not that anything I had to do to add her excerpt was very advanced, but I began to see what I could do. Anyway, I got inspired by Cheri’s formatting and interested in making more beautifully formatted books. Cheri suggested that I read Elizabeth Castro’s book, and I look forward to reading it when I have some time to play around with this stuff. I mean, we are indies because one of the benefits we have over traditionally published authors is that we can control every aspect of our books, including their formatting. Okay, it’s not as sexy as a cover for some, but there is going to be a great deal that can be done from what used to be termed “cover to cover.”

Granted we do need to find a balance with our writing, promoting, and marketing lives, so leaving this up to programmers might be an option too. But even so, knowing what’s possible is very important in working with ebook professionals.

Will you continue to use excerpt trading as part of your marketing plan in the future? Why or why not? 

Yes, I will. I’m sure that excerpt trading, as you have indicated, will morph into different things in the months and years to come. But I think it’s a solid way to market great stories to readers.

What do you think of what Author Carolyn McCray calls “sales nodes”? Do you think of this as a natural expansion of excerpt trading? 

Yes, actually I think this is the future of excerpt trading. I think it makes sense to promote in this way and it could be viewed as our own “lists,” if you will, like the lists that traditional publishing houses have. We would offer our readers a collection of writers and not only excerpt their work but collaboratively take turns at offering books at steep discounts. A combination of a candy store and old school publishing catalogues. And I think it’s a win-win for readers, because the market is huge. Finding quality titles can be time-consuming. The odds of finding a great story among authors affiliated in this way ups the reader’s chances of finding stories they’ll love because authors would want to be sure the quality is high in the group before lending their name to it.

You are already doing a lot of cross-promotion with the authors of your Pacific Northwest YA Authors group and the YA Indie Carnival. What has been your most successful cross-promotion thus far?

Both groups have had huge successes! And I’m actually also in a third group. =)

I think the YA Indie Carnival #yaindiecarnival has been a huge success for cross-promotion. It is a group of 25 authors & reviewers who post on all things YA Indy every Friday. It’s been a great way to showcase our books and review sites to new readers. It’s also been a tremendous source of writing and promotion tips, and most of all we’ve helped to support each other. We’ve not only learned about what’s new in our ever-changing industry but also about each other. Our most successful events have been our giveaways. Our most popular posts have been about social media and exclusive excerpts of new releases as well as personal posts about high school and a wide variety of other topics. We like to keep it intimate at the carnival so that readers get to know us well and want to run away with us to the carnival every Friday.

The best cross-promotion for the Pacific Northwest YA Authors has been the traditional face-to-face touring with our readers, be it at shows like Wordstock or libraries or independent bookstores. What an amazing group of writers! I can honestly say I’d never have been able to talk about my books as well as I can now, if it wasn’t for the support of Stacey, Angela, Lisa, Rebecca, Cidney, and you. If it wasn’t for the group, I never would have met you, Cheri. And not only would I miss your support, I would have taken much longer to find Artemis Rising, a story I loved. So, when you emailed proposing the excerpt trade I was thrilled. And I’m glad everyone was open to including me as I live part-time in Portland and part-time on the central coast of California.

I’m also involved in a group called The Paranormal Plumes Society and we have started cross-promoting each other in our books by listing each other’s names and websites at the end of our books. Beyond the cross-promotion we do, we just have a LOT of fun together and even had A Haunted Book Tour in Savannah, GA just before Halloween last October where we got to hang out with our readers and do things like eat at haunted restaurants and get spooked at one of the scariest haunted houses in the nation! We are on tour in Florida at the end of July, going to a high school and a few middle schools in the Deltona, FL area.

What do you think about the direction book marketing has headed in the past decade? How do you think the ebook explosion will play into book marketing in the next decade?

Well, I published my debut novel Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale, last July so I wasn’t out there trying to swing for the fences before this year. I’m not really certain of what it was/is like for traditionally published authors, having not been one. But I have heard quite a few stories about authors not feeling in control. I predict that in the next decade the formatting, promotion and marketing of books will be more and more in the hands of authors.

I also predict that’s where the next big idea will come from. From authors. Tech-savvy authors. Someone among us is the Mark Zuckerberg of ebooks and ebook marketing. One of us will be able to take ebook marketing and augment traditional book tours with a place where readers can learn about ebooks in all the ways people like to, with trailers and music and excerpts, reviews and author interviews. We have entered the age of the reader.

Not since the Gutenberg Press has there been such a development in the ability to read literature. Now we need to harness it. Aggregate the content, much like the Googles and Yahoos of the world do with what’s hot and trending in news and entertainment. That’s my prediction. There will be a Google or Yahoo of books, a site that aggregates things from Goodreads, Kirkus, Booklist, Amazon, Independent book stores, Barnes & Noble, and the other players to give readers what they want, and easy ways to find stories that they love.

Cheri, thanks so much for having me on your blog today! It’s been a wonderful experience to collaborate with you on my first excerpt exchange.

** Want to read Laura’s cross-post on the same topic? Laura asks me about excerpt trading as well as the future of enhanced ebooks. Just click here for more.

 An excerpt of Laura Elliott’s novel, Winnemucca

We meet seventeen-year old Ginny at the beginning of her enchanted road trip, where she discovers fear’s as blind as love, when she awakens to her intuition for the very first time.

I gripped the steel bars of the roadside prison sign and dangled underneath, swinging my feet, like I used to do once upon a time on the monkey bars. Somewhere between dangles, I stopped being me. Through silver links, in between long buildings with long windows, my eyes settled on what they’d only seen from afar, through the windows of Daddy’s car. Orange jumpsuits walking the yard. Some nights I’d walk like that–convict-style, in circles in my room before bed.

My stretched-out arms ached under the weight of my heart, hanging heavy in my chest. I swayed my feet from side-to-side, imagining our break-up. Saying the words that made me tremble, I can’t marry you. Saying the words that made me tremble more, I do. I’d walk down the aisle toward Bobby at The First Baptist Church of Avenal, where I’d been baptized as a baby by his father, and make the biggest mistake of my life in front of the entire congregation, everyone I’ve ever known. And I my gut tensed like it does in the split-second before a person’s about to do the wrong thing.

A convict paused inside the chain-link with his hands on his hips. I let go of the prison sign, dropped to my feet and stood ramrod straight, as different from the wimpy oats as possible. We stared at each other. Him in his prison. Me in mine. We both knew what kept us walking in circles.

Standing there all eyeball-to-eyeball I felt closer to the convict, heck, the whole Errant Brotherhood than I did to anyone. It wasn’t in our nature to be free. Staring down that wimpy fact for the very first time gave me a clarity. The kind that takes hold when a person peels back their lies.

When the convict slipped back into the circular crowd, I grabbed a handful of San Joaquin soil and swirled the fingers of my free hand in the little mound of dirt in my palm. I touched my soil-stained fingers to my heart and became a Child of The Road. My hair let loose in the same sundowner breeze that caressed every inch of my skin and every people-pleasing part of me blew toward The Sierras and up over The Great Divide. Some take to the road to tame a squirrelly nature, or take to it as a tonic, but for me the ripening was more than a simple call to the road.

Which way?

Left?

Or, right?

Paul Navarro, a member of one of my first writers groups here in the Pacific NW, just released his debut children’s book, The Gift Giver. While every writer’s journey is quite unique, it seems we’ve all had an uphill battle toward publication. In this post, Paul shares with us his insights into creating a digital version of his children’s book and how he finally reached his dream.

Let me start by saying that I teach computer literacy for a living, so you’ll understand that when I say formatting a picture book for self-publishing is a royal pain in the yaktabay (I’ve been watching “Taxi” reruns), I really mean it. I admit that I waited a little too long to get my book done. Not because I was procrastinating, but because I got married in October, which meant that the Christmas book I wanted to publish by Thanksgiving was going to have to wait. But, my excuses aside, this is my fuzzy account of my picture book publishing adventures.

A crash course in self-publishing

I wrote The Gift Giver years ago but only recently decided to publish it as sort of a crash course in self-publishing. So, sometime in the summer of 2011, I began to look for an illustrator. Now, I am an artist, but I knew I’d have little time to do my own illustrations because of my pending nuptials and the fact that I was going to have to do rewrites on my story. I talked to my brother first (our family overfloweth with artists) and asked him to come up with a cover design. He texted me a couple of weeks later saying he had a few ideas. I called him back saying I was anxious to get together, and we didn’t talk to each other again until my bachelor dinner two months later. I’m assuming my brother got tied down with other things like making an actual living, so we never really talked about the book again. I then contacted a couple of local Portland artists whose work I admired but they charged much more than I could afford on a teacher’s salary. Here’s the thing about artists: the good ones cost a lot and the ones you don’t pay are not motivated to finish the job. So, along with rewriting the story, I decided that after I got back from the honeymoon (we went to Disneyworld and it rocked!) I’d also do the artwork myself.

Don’t begin your art until you have a finished MS

When we got back from Florida, I worked hard with my writing group and agent (thanks Danielle and Plot Ninjas) to get a finished draft of the manuscript because it made no sense to start making art that may or may not be relevant to the story. So, another little tip: DON’T BEGIN YOUR ART UNTIL YOU HAVE A FINISHED MANUSCRIPT. I’ll get back to that later.

After about ten drafts, I finally started the art in a medium I had never worked in—watercolor. I know what you’re saying and I won’t repeat that kind of language here. But I had a vision. I love the way watercolor has a life of its own and I desperately wanted it to be part of my picture book. This, I have to say, was the only part of the book that went relatively smoothly. I put a plastic bag on my bed, turned on Netflix and watched Caprica as I painted late into the evenings. The watercolors turned out better than I imagined and so did the post–Battlestar Galactica series. Yeah me and yeah producers of Caprica!

Have a solid concept in mind before starting

Remember when I said not to start your artwork until you have a finished manuscript? This rule also applies to the book cover. I began my book cover in the summer, coming up with design after design that never seemed to work. I literally spent about a hundred hours on cover design, but my designs never quite captured the Christmas spirit or the spirit of the story. I finally realized it was because I only had a vague idea of what I wanted and therefore could never make up my mind. What number tip are we on—5, C, 4356 sub-category G? I don’t know, but anyway, my tip is to have a solid concept of the cover you would like before starting. I eventually looked at a bunch of Christmas books that I liked, chose one that I thought captured the spirit of my own book, and used all the same elements in my cover. But Paul, that’s stealing! No it ain’t. Do a Google image search for Christmas book covers; they’re all pretty much variations on the same theme and so are the covers for every other category of book. Next time I need to design a book cover, I’m looking for something in my genre that I like and copying the layout. The big companies re-use design elements over and over again for a reason. They sell!

A PDF file created within Word will compress your photos

Finally I was ready to upload my book. I mentioned above that I’m a teacher and therefore I take a rather scientific approach to doing almost anything. In this case, I researched tirelessly about how to upload my book to the various retailers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. The general consensus was that uploading your book was easy. However, all these folks that were talking about how simple the process was were uploading novels, not picture books. Picture books are a whole n’other pain in the yaktabay. What I discovered was that not only do all versions of Word compress your picture files by default, but there’s also a compression that takes place in your transfer to a PDF file. Let me repeat this again, because after hours of searching, I found this information nowhere on the Web. THERE IS A COMPRESSION OF IMAGE FILES THAT TAKES PLACE WHEN YOU CREATE A PDF FROM A WORD FILE. This is even after you turn off “Compress Pictures” in Word. I counted the hours I spent trying to solve this problem. Eighteen in all. Here’s the solution for Word 2010 (I haven’t tried it in other versions but it may work): When you install Adobe Acrobat, a new tab will pop up in your Word 2010 ribbon that says Acrobat.

How to turn off “Compress Pictures” in Microsoft Word

• Click on the Acrobat tab.
• Go to Preferences in the Create Adobe PDF group.
• Click on Advanced Settings in the new window.
• Click on Images from the left-hand menu.
• Turn off Downsampling.
• Turn off Compression.

Wasn’t that really, really complicated? See why it took me eighteen hours? But now it will take you no time at all.

Prepare to spend a few hours on each ebook upload

Of course, that was only the first hurdle. Every upload conversion program offered by Lulu, Amazon, Kindle, and Nook works a little differently, so prepare to spend a few hours—at least—reworking your file to have the look you want on the various eReading devices. Fortunately, after spending eighteen hours working out the above problem, spending a couple of hours making my file work for Lulu seemed like a breeze.

It’s worth it

My book, The Gift Giver, is now up and running on all the major sites: Lulu, Amazon Kindle, the Nook store, iBookstore, and Amazon Books (for the print version), and I must say it’s a quite satisfying feeling after all the trials and tribulations. I love seeing my book cover there with all the classics like a Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Oh, and also alongside the steamy romance novels like Secret Santa and the Christmas Knight. Yes that’s knight with a K. I originally began this project to learn what it was like to self-publish a book with an eye to publishing my middle-grade novel, The Incredible Misadventures of Zadora Zane, if my agent doesn’t get an offer we like. I’m glad I did it. The mystery is gone; I know how to self-publish. I feel empowered, proud, and relieved. But best of all, I can now ask people I meet, “Have you picked up a copy of my latest book?”

Paul’s blog focuses on middle-grade and YA books and movies at PicLitSavvy. You can find his book on Kindle, Amazon, and Lulu.