Tag: Writing Tips

I finally have taken the plunge and set up my account on Twitter.  It’s still amazing to me that I have successfully avoided the Twitter craze for as long as I have.  It also amazes me how ignorant I am to how it all works.

Setting up my profile was very easy to do with the hardest part being the process of deciding on a username that wasn’t already taken: JamesAlexander – No, James_Alexander – No (How many of me are out there?), Alexander_James – No, JAlexander – Of course not, I even tried James_Alexander1979 – No again.  At that point I banged my head against the keyboard, mashing all the keys and leaving strange indents in my forehead to get username laksdjfajofiwej and guess what?  If you guessed it wasn’t taken, you’re right.  But why would I want that for a username?

In the end, I wound up with JAlexander_2012.  I know – not extremely original, but better then laksdjfajofiwej.

With all that out of the way, I proceeded to upload my photo – which I had to resize multiple times to get Twitter to accept.  Proud, I leaned back in my chair admiring my handiwork.  And there it was.  The number 0 staring back at me for the number of tweets I have made.  I needed to take care of that immediately!  140 characters are all I need.  That should be easy!

*Crickets*

OK, 140 characters and NO followers listed.  What do I tweet about?  I never realized I’d have that dilemma.  So I thought to myself, Really?  C’mon!  You can do this!

*Crickets*

Finally, with no genius ideas coming to mind, I decided I’d do what I do when I write and hit a wall of self-doubt or a block – just write anything!  This is what my first tweet was (Get ready!  It’s amazing!):

“This is the first tweet of my life!”

Yes, lame.  I know.  But it did get the ball rolling – at least until my next tweet.  So there is my writing tip – buried in this post.  If you don’t know what to write or are in a block – write.  Who cares if it’s garbage?  It can always be edited later.  True, in my case, my first Twitter post will haunt me forever, but I’m proud of it.  First, I’m on Twitter, which I never thought I would be, second, I pushed past my First Twitter Post phobia, and third, I can’t post any worse of tweet than that.  So my only way is up from there.

I’d love some followers on Twitter where I will be posting news on my current work as well as cool things about my projects I have already completed.  Who knows – maybe someday I’ll post something witty!

The release day of my story Conduit is fast approaching. As of late, I have been working with a talented artist on the design of my cover. I had originally tried to design the cover myself but found I’d be better off hiring someone with more skill then I possess in the Photoshop realm – sadly learned from experience.

I have to give myself a pat on the back though, my attempt wasn’t too bad. Especially for someone who had only used Photoshop in college years ago. Compared to a lot of DIY covers out there, I think it would hold its own well enough. I had some grand ideas of what I wanted my cover to be and I began to dig into the free trial only to realize how much things have changed since my coursework in 1998. I remembered completing my project for the class which consisted of a giant squirrel crushing an image of the hotel I was working at through my college years. The image of a giant Mr. Clean, the hotel’s mascot at the time, stood laughing in the background (I really didn’t have anything against my job. I was actually enjoying it and even shared the image with my manager who thought it was quite funny – so it wasn’t a disgruntled employee sort of thing.)

With my hopes set high, I started drafting the image from a blank slate and then it hit me. Back in the day, there weren’t all these stupid rules around rights to images. One could open up the web browser – which happened to be Netscape at the time – and find images to their heart’s content so long as the page didn’t have copyright signs posted throughout the site. (That is at least what the instructor informed the class. Maybe she’s in jail now?) Now there are sites dedicated to clipart and images that designers pay money to use. Even images of toilette paper can be right protected. Good luck finding any decent free use image.

Still determined, I whipped out my digital camera and began snapping images of cross necklaces – my wife was good about it and lent me her jewelry and granted me all rights to the images I created. One hurdle out of the way, but I really wanted a needle in the picture since the theme in my story is science vs. religion. I’m no addict and I don’t have any diseases, at least that I know of and prefer to happily remain ignorant of it if I do, that require injections. So where would I find a needle?

Again, I have to give my wife credit. Using a dropper from baby Advil and a needle, she snapped a picture. It fooled me, but that’s not saying much.

Now, with all the layers I needed, I put them together. A day later, I sat and stared at the picture with triumph. I happily began to share the picture with friends and family to get their opinions. The responses I got ranged from a flat, “Yeah, that’s neat.” to a boring, “eh.” So I went back to the computer and stared at the image with a new perspective. After a moment of swearing to myself once I realized everyone else was right, which I hate to admit, I took some advice and decided to pay for someone else to do it.

After a few different versions of the artwork, I decided that I’ve tortured the poor artist enough. Everything that I received was excellent, but I couldn’t quite fit them to my story. I believe with this latest round, there are some versions that fit perfectly. Now I have the hard task of deciding on which I want to use.

If you have read this far, you may be wondering what the point was to all my ramblings. To summarize it all as one quick tip for authors who aim to self-publish their work: hire someone to design the book cover. Unless an author happens to be a maverick of all trades and has a reservoir of artistic ability to draw upon, I guarantee they could never create cover art as well as a person who specializes in graphic arts. I especially realized this when I saw the first images that came through from the artist. I had to force myself to swallow my pride and pony up the funds.

If my book tanks, at least it will tank with a nice cover.

I am very excited about the thought of releasing my book “Conduit” on Amazon in the very near future. Yes, a little nervous, OK a lot nervous, but still excited. I hope that people will enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. So with my energy high, I made the mistake of opening up my web browser and searching the internet for self publishing tips. Of course I was bombarded with different viewpoints from those expressing how wonderful self publishing is to those telling me only losers self publish. Of course on the one site explaining how I’m loser for self publishing my book, the thought ran by of posting a note explaining how some very famous authors started their career by self publishing but I forced myself to close the window and vent silently causing some indigestion.

Knowing self publishing my story was not going to be easy, I still made the decision to go for it. I had read some articles before making my decision, but not a lot. Just enough to get me knee deep in it. That’s the way I tend to do things. I dig myself a hole, seeing how far I can go and then, in between panting for breath, look up wondering how I’ll get out. I do end up finding a way out at some point, but I always find myself thinking that I should have listened to more advice. But where’s the fun in that?

At this point, I have my story ready to go. The cover is almost ready. I have a website with a blog, a facebook page, and even a google page (which I haven’t had any time to add anything to). In between thinking about how to manage all of these things, I’m thinking about how much more I can spread myself out. After all, who doesn’t want to hear from me? I need to get to everyone! Next up, Twitter so I can tweat like I’ve never tweated before! Watch out Twitter! Oh, I can’t forget I’ll need an Amazon page too.

So here I am, sitting in that hole I dug, taking a breath for a moment, my trusty shovel propped up next to me while I sit and stare up a the clouds above.

I understand now why so many people have tried the self publishing venture and gave up at some point along the way, running back to trying to get a publisher to notice their work – all to finally give up on their dream completely. The fact is though, even if an author finds a publisher to publish their work, this day in age an author cannot afford to skimp out on social applications, or at least new authors can’t. There is still a lot of work an author needs to do even when working with a publisher. Many publishers scour the internet to research authors submitting work, to make sure they have a web presence. My argument to those who shun self published authors is this: Neither route, self publishing or traditional publishing is a walk in the park. Publishing traditionally means that the author may get some boost in marketing power, but self publishing means most profit goes to the author.

There. I’ve proved to myself I’m on the right track. Maybe if I keep digging, I’ll find my way out?