12 April 2025, Writing - part xxxx016 Centurion Republication
Announcement: I
still need a new publisher. However, I’ve taken the step to republish my
previously published novels. I’m starting with Centurion, and
we’ll see from there. Since previously published novels have little
chance of publication in the market (unless they are huge best sellers), I
might as well get those older novels back out. I’m going through Amazon
Publishing, and I’ll pass the information on to you.
Introduction: I wrote the
novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel
and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that
included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other
general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the
metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the
way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire
novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I’m using this novel as
an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel
published. I’ll keep you informed along the way.
Today’s Blog: To see the steps in
the publication process, visit my writing websites http://www.sisteroflight.com/.
The four plus two basic
rules I employ when writing:
1. Don’t confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don’t show (or tell) everything.
4a. Show what can be
seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted on the stage of the novel.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
6. The initial scene is the most important scene.
These are the steps I use to write a novel
including the five discrete parts of a novel:
1. Design the initial scene
2. Develop a theme statement
(initial setting, protagonist, protagonist’s helper or antagonist, action
statement)
a. Research as required
b. Develop the initial
setting
c. Develop the characters
d. Identify the telic flaw
(internal and external)
3. Write the initial scene
(identify the output: implied setting, implied characters, implied action
movement)
4. Write the next scene(s)
to the climax (rising action)
5. Write the climax scene
6. Write the falling action
scene(s)
7. Write the dénouement
scene
I finished writing my 31st novel,
working title, Cassandra, potential title Cassandra:
Enchantment and the Warriors. The theme statement is: Deirdre and
Sorcha are redirected to French finishing school where they discover difficult
mysteries, people, and events.
I finished writing my 34th novel
(actually my 32nd completed novel), Seoirse,
potential title Seoirse: Enchantment and the Assignment. The
theme statement is: Seoirse is assigned to be Rose’s protector and helper at
Monmouth while Rose deals with five goddesses and schoolwork; unfortunately,
Seoirse has fallen in love with Rose.
Here is the cover
proposal for the third edition of Centurion:
|
Cover Proposal |
The most important scene
in any novel is the initial scene, but eventually, you have to move to the
rising action. I am continuing to write on my 30th novel,
working title Red Sonja. I finished my 29th novel,
working title Detective. I finished writing number 31,
working title Cassandra: Enchantment and the Warrior. I just
finished my 32nd novel and 33rd novel: Rose:
Enchantment and the Flower, and Seoirse: Enchantment and the
Assignment.
How to begin a novel. Number one thought,
we need an entertaining idea. I usually encapsulate such an idea with a
theme statement. Since I’m writing a new novel, we need a new theme
statement. Here is an initial cut.
For novel 30: Red Sonja, a Soviet spy,
infiltrates the X-plane programs at Edwards AFB as a test pilot’s
administrative clerk, learns about freedom, and is redeemed.
For Novel 32: Shiggy Tash finds a lost girl
in the isolated Scottish safe house her organization gives her for her latest
assignment: Rose Craigie has nothing, is alone, and needs someone or something
to rescue and acknowledge her as a human being.
For novel 33, Book girl:
Siobhàn Shaw is Morven McLean’s savior—they are both attending Kilgraston
School in Scotland when Morven loses everything, her wealth, position, and
friends, and Siobhàn Shaw is the only one left to befriend and help her
discover the one thing that might save Morven’s family and existence.
For novel 34: Seoirse is assigned to
be Rose’s protector and helper at Monmouth while Rose deals with five goddesses
and schoolwork; unfortunately, Seoirse has fallen in love with Rose.
For novel 35: Eoghan, a Scottish National
Park Authority Ranger, while handing a supernatural problem in Loch Lomond and
The Trossachs National Park discovers the crypt of Aine and accidentally
releases her into the world; Eoghan wants more from the world and Aine desires
a new life and perhaps love.
Here
is the scene development outline:
1.
Scene input (comes from the previous scene output or is an initial scene)
2.
Write the scene setting (place, time, stuff, and characters)
3.
Imagine the output, creative elements, plot, telic flaw resolution (climax) and
develop the tension and release.
4.
Write the scene using the output and creative elements to build the tension.
5.
Write the release
6.
Write the kicker
Today: Let me tell you a little about writing. Writing
isn’t so much a hobby, a career, or a pastime. Writing is a habit and an
obsession. We who love to write love to write.
If
you love to write, the problem is gaining the skills to write well. We
want to write well enough to have others enjoy our writing. This is
important. No one writes just for themselves the idea is absolutely
irrational and silly. I can prove why.
In
the first place, the purpose of writing is communication—that’s the only
purpose. Writing is the abstract communication of the mind through
symbols. As time goes by, we as writers gain more and better tools and
our readers gain more and better appreciation for those tools and skills—even
if they have no idea what they are.
We
are in the modern era. In this time, the action and dialog style along
with the push of technology forced novels into the form of third person, past
tense, action and dialog style, implying the future. This is the modern
style of the novel. I also showed how the end of literature created the
reflected worldview. We have three possible worldviews for a novel: the
real, the reflected, and the created. I choose to work in the reflected
worldview.
Why
don’t we go back to the basics and just writing a novel? I can tell you
what I do, and show you how I go about putting a novel together. We can
start with developing an idea then move into the details of the writing.
Ideas. We need ideas. Ideas allow us
to figure out the protagonist and the telic flaw. Ideas don’t come fully
armed from the mind of Zeus. We need to cultivate ideas.
1. Read novels.
2. Fill your mind with good
stuff—basically the stuff you want to write about.
3. Figure out what will
build ideas in your mind and what will kill ideas in your mind.
4. Study.
5. Teach.
6. Make the catharsis.
7. Write.
The development of ideas is based on study and
research, but it is also based on creativity. Creativity is the
extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a new
form. It is a reflection of something new created with ties to the
history, science, and logic (the intellect). Creativity requires
consuming, thinking, and producing.
If we have filled our mind with all kinds of
information and ideas, we are ready to become creative. Creativity means
the extrapolation of older ideas to form new ones or to present old ideas in a
new form. Literally, we are seeing the world in a new way, or actually,
we are seeing some part of the world in a new way.
The beginning of creativity is study and
effort. We can use this to extrapolate to creativity. In addition,
we need to look at recording ideas and working with ideas.
With that said, where should we go? Should
I delve into ideas and creativity again, or should we just move into the novel
again? Should I develop a new protagonist, which, we know, will result in
a new novel. I’ve got an idea, but it went stale. Let’s look at the
outline for a novel again:
1. The initial scene
2. The rising action scenes
3. The climax scene
4. The falling action
scene(s)
5. The dénouement scene(s)
I’m
one of those unfortunate authors who had works published by regular publishers,
but whose publishers went out of business.
We aren’t that uncommon. I guess
you get your day in the sun, and if you don’t break in as a bestseller, you
never see the light of day again. Let’s
hope that isn’t true.
I
have another author friend who is in the same boat with me. He has gone the self-publishing route pretty
exclusively. I’ve not gone completely
there, but he encouraged and discouraged me with some truth. Even if I get a new publisher, there is
little chance my previously published works will ever get republished. With that he encouraged me to get my previous
novels back into the market by republishing them. He uses Amazon, so I started looking at
them. I went on contract with Amazon to
republish Centurion, and I can report that about nine months later Centurion is
being published in a revised edition.
The revision simply corrects some very small issues as well as known
spelling and other errors I noted in the novel.
I
can be very specific about the changes.
I study history of this period about 500 BC to 300 AD very intensely,
and came to a conclusion that metal was even more limited in use than I had
determined back when I first wrote the novel.
In addition, I found that furniture was even less common than most
historians realize. This was from the
study of archeology as well as Greek and Latin documents. My real expertise is in Classical Greek. My reading of these documents as well as the
study of first Century Jewish documents, led me to revise the account of John
the Baptist’s immersion. These changes
are all very subtle and small in the document, but they make the novel even
more accurate than it was.
The
other changes were to contractions. I’m
not certain why we didn’t use lots of contractions especially in the dialog,
but we didn’t back in 2008, so to make the reading easier I just applied normal
contractions in the dialog. These are
all the real changes in the document.
I do
have to report Amazon did have some real problems with formatting, but they
stuck with it. I’ll get into that next.
Really,
I stuck to the fixes in the document, and I haven’t ordered or received a
published copy yet. I need to take a
close look at one. The problem with
Amazon, and I presume with most publishers in this market (self-publishing) is
that their clientele are not familiar with or educated on formatting and
publishing. Amazon as well as others
will just spew out a document, and I suspect most authors will accept what they
provide without much review or understanding.
In
my case, I provided Amazon with a fully formatted and previously published
manuscript. They went to great pains to
completely corrupt said manuscript. What
resulted was months of back and forth.
After I had reviewed their latest document for about the tenth time
making word for word passes about five times per review, I came to the
conclusion that I would not review any document they sent me that had any
repeat or obvious formatting issues they caused. I threatened and billed them for any
formatting problems I found. I also
checked the word count and left telltales in the document so I could tell if
they were using the most recent document and if they had deleted text (or added
text). I found significant problems just
by checking word count and by looking at my telltales. As I wrote, I think most writers who
self-publish think they have written the great American novel and then publish
it. They have no idea what a publisher
is supposed to do. I’m not convinced
that Amazon (or other self-publishing) houses know what to do. For example, my novel, Centurion, was
formatted just like the WSJ with a large letter for the initial paragraph of a
chapter. In addition, the paragraphs
were formatted similar to the WSJ (Wall Street Journal). It took months and many emails to get Amazon
be produce this very common formatting.
There is more—I’ll get to that, next.
Did I mention that this was the
republication of a professionally published novel? My publisher’s editor, who was a fantastic
and detailed editor (meaning she was very careful of the details) put in
italics for specific emphasis in the novel.
These were wiped out in the big formatting push that put the novel at
around 380 pages, more in line with the original publication. I was happy with the page count, but not the
destruction caused in the text. This
began another few months of back and forth.
As I wrote, I got to the point where I just told the Amazon crew the
first problem I found and sent them back the document. I had had too much of spending a week on the
text and outlining the problems then finding even more on the next go. I should mention that I moved from very
careful editing with comments in text, like I had done with my very competent
publisher, to just making the changes in the text myself. At first, I found many things I could not
fix. They were embedded formatting
problems where the text would blowup when changes were made. At first I tried making these fixes myself,
but they were so intensive and so embedded, I just passed them back to the
formators. There is much more to this,
but I should write much of the problem, in my opinion, was that Amazon has no
skin in the game. They figure if the
author puts out a crappy novel, it won’t matter much because most of the novels
and document they see are really crap.
In addition, the virgin response of their self-publishing authors who
think they are getting premium service when they are just getting bottom
feeding publishing is a real problem.
I’ve had six novels professionally published and I can assure you, I
know what a good final document and ready for publishing document looks
like. The fact that basic WSJ styling is
a mystery to Amazon should tell you something.
The WSJ comes out every day but Sundays and holidays and is a classic
format. This shouldn’t be
difficult. I’ll explain more, next.
I also think some of the Amazon formatting
problems comes from whom they employ. If
you are not trained in English and especially in English grammar and writing,
you will have a significant problem with formatting and publishing. As I wrote and I assert very strongly, I
think many self-published writers are uneducated about writing and perhaps less
educated than those working for Amazon in their publishing division. If you were to ask the average self-publisher
the rules of grammar or of, for example, properly breaking a word at the end of
a line, I suspect they could not explain it.
If you asked about paragraph development or just basic grammar, I
suspect their education is so bad they couldn’t identify the basic parts of
speech much less diagram a complex sentence.
If you don’t understand basic grammar, you aren’t getting very far in
the writing business. In any case, I think
the Amazon publishers might be ahead of the curve of many of the authors, but definitely
not up to the level of an editor or a publisher. This is a terrible problem because their formatting
software forces the writer and the publisher to go word for word through the
document to ensure correct spacing, correct paragraphs, as well as correct
complex formatting. As I noted, every
time I received a new document from them, there were very large and extensive
errors. I literally had to go through every
word and letter in the document every time they sent a new one to find these
problems. As I wrote, I finally told
them generally the errors I was seeing and just sent the document back to them
hoping they would make a better look through.
I think that’s what they did, eventually.
After about a document a week for over
nine months, the document slowly got better and better. Near the end, I began editing again, and
charged them a dollar per their errors.
They haven’t paid me a penny, but I think this is just compensation
because I found over a hundred errors they caused in the last document
edits. The very last bits of edits were
catching up the formatting errors they made at the beginning. For example, I insisted they fix the italics
they had wiped out in the original. This
too a couple of runs, but they eventually had someone look through the document
and return the original italics as my original publisher had formatted it. I was able to complete the final formatting for
them with about five edits on the document.
I should mention that all through the
process they kept bothering me about printing a copy of the novel. They even did it once without asking me. The printed copy was so full of errors, I
sent it back with a bill after finding 100 errors in 50 pages. I sent a bill and asked if they wanted me to
continue. The printed copy trick is a
way to get to the virgin self-publisher.
They presume a self-publisher will see the printed copy and become so
starry-eyed they will immediately give up and authorize the publication. Just because it is in print doesn’t mean it
is a well made and published book. I
still have the copy they sent me—it’s filled with errors. Such errors will make you look like an idiot
in the business. Even low knowledge and
educated readers (if there is such a thing) will notice it. I’m not certain how Amazon allows this kind
of junk because it surely hurts their bottom line. Perhaps they know they make the most money
from the author and not from anything the author sells. I’ll go over how a real publisher works,
next.
How does a real publisher work? I’ve partner published one novel, The
Second Mission, and had a regular publisher for Centurion, Aegypt,
The End of Honor, The Fox’s Honor, and A Season of Honor. When my book went on contract, the publisher
took care of everything. They formatted
the novel perfectly and in a similar form to the WSJ as well as about 90% of
novels and books today. Their formatting
was meticulous to the point where all I had to do was watch and respond to the
small changes and errors my editor at the publisher found and needed clarity
on. I can assure you that every novel
and every book has some clarity issue that requires editing. The publisher’s editor takes care of the
small stuff like caps, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and all, but they can’t
fix something that isn’t clear. That’s
where the editor comes in. So, the point
is that for formatting with a regular publisher (and I would say, any competent
publisher) you don’t have to worry about a thing. They take care of all the formatting, make it
perfect, and at the same time, they fix errors in the text that are basic
stuff. Don’t expect that from Amazon or
any usually self-publishing group. They
take your hash and give you somewhat formatted hash. If you want editing or any fixes, you must
pay. Further, if you aren’t careful, the
self-publisher will lose your text and create errors in your document. This is why I suggest doing a couple of
things to protect yourself.
Firstly, always check the word count in
your book. Every time you get a document
back, make sure the word count is the same as the previous document. I find that Amazon will lose text
willy-nilly, and how are you going to find the missing words in the 100,000
word novel. Hope you are ready to check
every word and every version.
Secondly, put in an obvious check at the
end of the document. For example, at almost
the last page of my novel, in the ads for my other novels, I corrected a
website. That was my check for a long
time and told me that the publisher was not using the latest document. I never told them about my check bomb—it just
told me they weren’t using the right document.
Thirdly, make sure they are fixing the
details. It isn’t appropriate for the
centering, italics, basic pagination, page numbers, alignment, page layouts,
margins, or anything else to be off. At
the worst, such mistakes will make you a laughing stock in the business, at the
best, no one in their right mind would buy a poorly designed and formatted
novel. This is the problem with no skin
in the game and this is why I advise you not to self-publish. As my example shows, self-publishing should
be for those whose novels will never be read and for those whose novels will
never be republished. You want to be in
the later and not the former group.
Just like my author friends who have been
published before and want to get their works back into the market or those who
have proven their skills and aren’t waiting for a regular publisher again, this
is the criteria for self-publication. Just
realize if a publisher doesn’t have any skin in the game, you will not get an
output that is worth reading or publication unless you know what you are doing
and what to look for. Let me help you
with that, next.
What should a correctly published book
look like? Well, in the past most every
book was properly published because about 99% of books were published by
regular publishers and only a few were self-published. At that time, the self-publishers really did
a good job of publishing because they saw their competition as the regular
publishers. Publishing was not cheap and
self-published books were acts of love and self-reflection. They were usually put out by the relatively wealthy
near the end of their lives who wanted to provide an autobiography or a wisdom
book for their children and grandchildren.
As self-publishing prices came down, people
saw it as a means of putting out their novels that otherwise would not be
published. I’ve seen some very nicely
self-published books, and I’ve seen some horrific self-published books. The horrific tend to be stuff out of
copyright that people are publishing as POD (publish on demand) to make a few
bucks. These are really terrible books. They are difficult to read, the formatting and
pagination is indecipherable, and many times they are filled with obtuse and
unremarkable pictures that have nothing to do with the text. The self-published by the inexperienced tend
to be better, but not by much.
As I tried to explain, the work accomplished
by self-publishing companies for the inexperienced is a step above the
terrible, but without any skin in the game, the publisher could care less about
the quality of the book. They don’t make
any money (or very little) on the sale—they make most of the money from the
self-publisher. How to protect yourself
and get something decent out of the process.
I’ll get to that, next.
Take a look at professionally published
books of the type you are producing.
Remember, in the first place, unless you have had regularly published
works, I don’t recommend you self-publish.
If you do self-publish, you need to ensure you are familiar with the
formatting of the types of books you are publishing. If you don’t I can assure you, the
self-publishers will eat you alive. You
must know what you want your final book to look like.
A regular publisher has skin in the
game. They want to make money from your
book, so they will make your books look perfect as possible. A self-publisher has very little skin in the
game. If you pay them a thousand bucks
to publish a book and the book doesn’t sell a single copy, there is literally
no skin off their nose. They have your
money in the bank and you may or may not have the ether ownership of a sellable
book. If the book looks like crap on the
interior, you might sell a single copy, but if the book is technically
unreadable—then you are screwed. How can
it be technically unreadable?
Listen carefully. If the publisher formats your book such that
the paragraph separations are incorrect, then your dialog might be not
understandable or unreadable. If the
word separations are too close or too far away, the work might be hard to
read. Too close is especially bad. If the pagination increases due to poor
formatting, you will be left with a very expensive book to produce that makes
nothing in sales. Just getting a few
sales is a great hope for most authors.
Sales is supposed to mean profits of some kind. Most authors of self-published novels are
interested in sales because that means someone is reading their novels or
books.
The bottom line is to makes sure you know
what a regularly published book/novel looks like and keep demanding the
publisher make your book look that what you want and know it should look
like. Don’t put up with anything less
than perfect. You paid for the
self-publication, and you deserve the best production possible. I can assure you a regular publisher wants
the book, your book, to sell. A
self-publisher could really care less if your novel sells a single copy. I mean, they might feel bad if it doesn’t,
but they didn’t lose a single penny in the process. I’ll move on to how to find the revised Centurion,
next.
Yes, my novel Centurion has been
republished. I’m still waiting for a
hard (printed) copy to be able to check on the quality of the final printed
version, but the document I finally achieved with Amazon (after 9 or more
months) was acceptable. As I wrote, my
biggest question is why they had so many problems with a document that was
professionally published in the first place.
Where to find Centurion.
Perhaps the easiest way to get the novel
is through Amazon. If you search for
Centurion Alford, it will immediately come up.
Putting in just Centurion will not get there.
I have the novel on my website, but I
haven’t checked all the connections in a while.
I also need to update the graphics and perhaps the information a
little.
You can get the novel as a Kindle book and
in other formats too, I understand. I
haven’t checked it all out yet.
Additionally, the novel is supposed to be produced in an audio format. This was a request by some of my fans. It might be worth it.
To tell you the truth, I’m not putting a
huge amount of energy into the marketing of the novel. That’s not because I’m unhappy with the novel
or anything like that. It’s just that I’ve
other projects at the moment. I do need
to get into the marketing of this and my other live book The Second Mission.
I will not this. My author friend read The Second Mission
and gave it a positive review. Most of
those who have read it have enjoyed it.
I will admit that The Second Mission isn’t for everyone—it’s got
Greek dialogs (written and translated into modern text and dialog) which make
it a little esoteric and cerebral.
However, the people who have enjoyed the novel aren’t college professors
and even the university people who have read the novel find it fun. Enough with that.
Centurion is available and can be
bought in paperback, hardback, and electronically. I suspect it is in many other booksellers on
the web. I need to look. I also have connections on the website—I need
to check those. I also need to update
the purchasing connections on my websites.
I’ll have to figure out how to make all this stuff work again. Oh well.
I want to write another book based on Rose
and Seoirse, and the topic will be the raising of Ceridwen—at least that’s my
plan. Before I get to that, I want to write another novel about
dependency as a theme. We shall see.
More
tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel
websites:
http://www.ancientlight.com/
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
