F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Smashwords

ERO—Trade Paperback Now Available!

by

ERO (2013, F. P. Dorchak, Don McCall, Lon Kirschner)
ERO (2013, F. P. Dorchak, Don McCall, Lon Kirschner)

Well, the trade paperback edition of ERO has arrived!

The 6 x 9 trade paperback edition of ERO is now available at CreateSpace, courtesy of Wailing Loon. I’m asking $14.99 for it. It hasn’t yet migrated to Amazon.com and other distributors, as of this writing, but do keep checking!

And (I must say…) the complete, full jacket is every bit as stunning as the front cover! It might be the young buck on the back flap, it might be the really cool faux organizational patch…or could it be le très cool Wailing Loon imprint image? Oh, yeah, I hope the story kicks butt, too. Yeah, the story. Anyway, I’m really not sure which is more stunning-er. You be the judge.

The nifty patch above is courtesy of two friends of mine, Don McCall, who created the patch at my request several years ago, and Lon Kirschner, of Kirschner Caroff Graphic Design & Consulting, my cover artist for ERO. I’ve been dying to use this patch and put it out into the public “eye”—ha, pardon the pun!—ever since Don created it (thanks, Don, for that kick-ass patch—there’s a free, autographed book in it for ya)! Lon had to do some “graphic artist wizardry” to use it on the book, but we also had to change some things cause: 1) NRO stole my motto, and b) had to add some extra “pop” for the cover. Oh, yeah, I do plan on going Cafe Press with it. But that will be a little while. My original motto was “Above and Beyond,” in various versions of Latin, but a fellow writer friend pointed out that NRO (the bastards) already had the phrase. Since they’ve been around a little longer, and are, well, scarier than me, I decided not to fight the issue. I changed the motto to “IN TÉNEBRIS,” which is supposed to translate into “Into the darkness.” I used a couple of Internet translators for this and they seemed to agree, so I hope it’s correct. It better be correct. If it isn’t, don’t tell me and allow me to live in my little Fantasy Land….

And then we have…the rest…of the cover:

ERO Paperback (2013, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
ERO Paperback (2013, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Yeah, that’s me, 26 years ago. As a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Where the hell does the time go, maaan?

The Air Force and I parted a long time ago, but I thought the picture germane to use for the cover, since the main character is me—I mean, the main character is in the Air Force, in the same timeframe (and, no, Conspiracy Theorists, do not read anything into that—all the weird shit is made up, period; those who deal in real Weird Shit know this, but I don’t need the added grief of some weird shit mythology building up around me as some kind of weird shit guru, cause I’m not—I’m just a writer trying to get by…writing weird shit…). And Lon was cool enough to incorporate Don’s extraordinary efforts of the ERO patch onto the cover. Thanks, again, man. Ever consider consulting?

So, there it is, my friends and kindly readers, the e-book and trade paperback editions of ERO, a story I began back in 2006, based on a weird idea, and helped along by various individuals, including my ex-agent (who I still can’t thank enough), incredible content formatter, Pam Headrick, incredible Cool Cover Dude, Lon Kirschner, and CreateSpace, Smashwords, B&N, Amazon, and all the other outlets and platforms and people out there and are mentioned in my acknowledgments page. I hope you enjoy the read and, if you do, please, talk, tweet, blog, and whatever the hell out of it. Yes, you can use these images—just, please attribute the appropriate people and/or links to their creation. Then could I also ask of you to post reviews of your read when done? Thanks. I’d greatly appreciate it.

See my website (www.fpdorchak.com) for other books.

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ERO—On Sale Now!

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ERO (© F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
ERO (© F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Well, my team and I have done it—Lon Kirschner, Pam Headrick, Cherry Weiner, and all the other readers and people (see Acknowledgements/Author Note in the beginning of the book) who have read and commented and helped out in any way—ERO is finally available through Smashwords, Amazon, and soon, Nook (not yet processed; please, keep checking back)! Thanks, for everything, folks! I’m charging $5.99 for this book. It’s bigger and I have more money invested in it. I will shortly be working on getting the physical copy out there; it takes more coordination.

Wow, what a sprint. As with The Uninvited, it’s so weird to actually, finally see this out there after so many years (seven). I have in my writing log that I started plotting for the novel on March 6, 2006, and started actually writing the manuscript itself “in earnest” on March 9th, around 4 p.m. (Mountain Time). I’d called the working title of the manuscript Brilliant Eyes. You’ll see that tile in the story. I also note in the log, that a few days later—March 11th—my wife and I took a trip to Roswell, NM. Yeah, that Roswell. That was an interesting trip. Met and talked with some very interesting people, including an “Earth Station Roswell” guy who took us into his back room to spend a serious amount of time talking with us about his plans for a huge Roswell conference center using advanced/state-of-the-art technology in creating this center…basically, making it like a huge UFO mothership for the conference center itself. It was so cool. Incredibly cool. And we thanked him for the honor of his taking the time he did talking with us. He and I had to have been talking about an hour or more. Anyway, I’d kept tabs on him for a couple years, but last heard he’d been fighting not only water rights issues, but his fellow locals, for him pulling the “UFO business” out of downtown Roswell, and to the “front” of Roswell. I’ll have to check up on all this, now, that I’m reminding myself of it. Maybe interview him for my blog.

This also reminds me of the woman behind That Crazy Lady Down The Road, Judy Messoline (I have a signed copy of her book; will now have to give her the same, since I’d been talking up my book with her for years), and her UFO Watchtower. We’d gone down to see her many times over the years, and would just hang out and B.S. with her at her place, in the 90+ degree heat…watching the summer thunderheads roll in and out, talking about UFO sightings and, once, even getting some violin lessons from another lady also hanging out with Judy. This lady also went on to play some violin music. That was sooo cool, the four of us and Judy’s dogs, out in the middle of nowhere, violin music gracing the airwaves! After visiting her the first time, my wife and I then went around the area asking residents whether or not they’d seen anything weird, and, boy, did we hear some stuff. One was told us from a person who told us their grandmother used to sit on their front porch and watch UFOs rise out of Blanca Mountain (the prominent peak down there). Their grandmother’s time was the late 1800s.

Well. Here it is. My opus. My space opera. My signature work, as I’ll call it, because that’s how I look at this one. Of all I’ve written, and those who have read all of my work (including my ex-agent), this is the one everyone loves the most. This is my “Big Book.” It’s got it all: intrigue, love, conspiracies, UFOs, aliens, thinky stuff, scary stuff, funny stuff. Parts of my life. My DNA.

Thoughts for our future.

And I give it all to you.

I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for stopping by, and I thank you all in advance for taking a chance on it.

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Going Indie—What I’ve Learned (So Far)—Part 4

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Escape from Pain
Want to Intrude into the Land of Traditional Publishing? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Uninvited became available on barnesandnoble.com May 23.

This is the last week to get The Uninvited for free, through Smashwords. Starting June 1st, I’ll be charging $3.99. Thanks to everyone for all the downloads!

Okay, some more things I’ve learned along the way, about intruding into the land of the traditional publisher:

  1. This might sound obvious, but clean out your e-mail once in a while! Yeah, it will get overloaded, especially once you start adding all kinds of social media and accounts, etc. Can either do it as you go, or muscle through it all at once, but also remember the “source” email accounts. I.e., if you use one email account that, say, is used to for Outlook, or forwards to other accounts/locations. YOu may clean out Outlook files, but you’d still have Hotmail or Google, or whatever you use accounts to also clear out. I haven’t found a way to do this from Outlook.
  2. The book itself: in your Acknowledgements, Notes, etc., if there’s a family member you want to also include, make sure to make a note to include them beyond your research people you’re thanking. It can be embarrassing. In Indie publishing, you can always update that later, and re-upload. You can mitigate that in the interim by posting a blog thanking them, but sometimes, in all the rewrites, things get lost, and there’s really no one looking out for you, like an editor.
  3. I created a press release, at http://www.prlog.org–took a long time to get “approve” e-mails, so do the account creation early, and boy, it seemed rather intricate in its process and the “user friendliness/ obviousness” of some of the process just wasn’t there, depending where you are, say, when buying “credits” to get additional umphf for your press releases. So, if you want the $49 credit beyond the basic press release, buy it early, when creating your account.
  4. Also regarding PRLog.org, if you don’t get your e-mail verification soon, go back and select for resend. I really wanted to get this out last Friday, and almost blew my desire to send out then, because, even though it said you’d get that email in “a couple minutes,” I never saw it, came back at the end of the day, still never had it, and reselected the resend verification–ended up sending out late in the day, Don’t know if that hurt me, but it was highly annoying….
  5. Sign up for Pinterest: quick, easy, and fun!
  6. Sign up for About.me. Quick and easy, but wonder how useful it is (sorry, About-dot)? That might be the “About.com” stuff you always see in search engines that (IMHO) never seems to add much to my searches, so I always avoid checking out, but, hey, Smashwords recommend them, so I did it.
  7. HARO: not so sure about this. This might be more for nonfiction, but I signed up to see if it’s worth it. Be warned, only do this and subscribe to their emails if you’re really gonna use them!  You’ll get tons, and if you have more than one email account, and forward them, or have any kind of back and forth between emails forwards, this could get very busy in keeping clean. I killed all my subscriptions, but kept the account, because they just didn’t interest me, and they seemed like doubles and triplicates of the same email you got the first time. You’ll probably also get a phone and/or email from their parent company, VOCUS, looking to sell you an Internet marketing plan—not a bad thing, but that’s what that call is about, if you get it.
  8. I tried LinkedIn again, and signed up. Have my reservations about them, because they always send such ANNOYING “come join us” emails!  For each of you out there, you can try this, to shut them off at the get-go: if you don’t want to be contacted to JOIN LinkedIn, see if this link works (I haven’t tried it and if I do, my account gets terminated:  go to http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/426 (guess it doesn’t hyperlink, so copy and paste in your browser). If this doesn’t work (it should) go to LinkedIn and search their Help for “Adding or Removing Your Email from Do Not Contact List,” or get someone who is part of LinkedIn to access this help page to input your email on their “Do Not Contact” list. According to this Help Page, if you enter your info into here, you are blocked from receiving those annoying e-mails. I hope so, Please, do Humanity a favor, and send this to everyone you know, if it works, and please, let me know if it does work! Most in LinkedIn I’ve talked with about this problem didn’t even know those e-mails were “on their behalf.” They’re auto generated. I suspect that when one imports their email contact lists into LinkedIn, that’s how they get the info to auto generate their “invites.” I have not done that, just because of that thought, so I hope no one gets an auto-generated invite from me, but if you do, contact me about its (fpdochak@fodorchak.com). I might get terminated from LinkedIn, because of this, but oh, well. Do note this, however: if you associate your own email address used in YOUR LinkedIn account, your account will be terminated.
  9. Also keep in mind, once yu create all these social media accounts, the trick is also to keep up on them, check in on them once in a while. Hey don’t run themselves, you know! :-] I’m trying to do that, but am still dealing with “collateral issues,” from all this mass-creation, so have not yet been as good as I should be in that respect. Who knows, I might even drop an account or two, depending on how useful that are [not]. But just keep that in mind when “willy-nilly” creating all this stuff….

Okay, that’s the latest, and exhausts my current notes. I really want to consolidate and put out on Slideshare.net, so look for that in the future. I don’t yet even have an account there. Hope I’ve been able to help out on some of the less-obvious tips. I must say, that things have gotten back to much better pace, since I’ve created all this stuff, just as Terry Wright said it would (thanks, Terry).

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Going Indie—What I’ve Learned (So Far)—Part 3

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The Indie learning curve continues!

While I don’t feel as harried as I did the past couple weeks, though there are still things to do and learn and do better next time. And I still have to promote…more. I’m looking forward to it all!

Okay, so, here’s some more learnin’:

  1. Update on the B&N account thing: check your frigging JUNK MAIL. And if you use Outlook, check the frigging JUNK MAIL in your host e-mail account funneling into Outlook.  Sheesh. Yeah, I kept checking the Outlook account, but not the host account. It sat there for almost a week. When had it been approved? The 15th. Same day I requested it. <insert “funny words” here> I went in and updated everything…and it still has to get approval, but this time it says (once book content is uploaded) it could take up to 72 hours. So, hopefully, by Friday, The Uninvited will be available through Nook for $3.99 (still free one more week at Smashwords). Man, lots of “Uninvited” books.
  2. Nook’s cover file:  they limit the image to a maximum of 2 MB. Thanks, Cover Girl, Karen, for getting me that so quickly. :-]
  3. Update on updating the KDP version of Uninvited: yes, that is how it looks when updating—it looks exactly like you’re starting over, but the already uploaded version remains available, and the changes go through smoothly and there’s no reason to have to change your shorts.
  4. Found a great post interview on Susan Brooks’ blog, with Smashwords Marketing Manager, Jim Azevedo (thanks, RMFW loop and Susan for posting this!).
  5. This was kinda cool: Amazon has author pages in other countries (duh), and asks if you’d like to input some author info there. The countries offered were France, Germany, and the UK. This is my US author page. Now, My German ist sehr rusty, et moi Français even more so, which is how international incidents start (my French is non-existent, except for words and phrases like fromage and voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? And no, I’m not asking the latter. See, that how’s international incidents start…), so I like to use an online translator, like Babylon 10, for extended foreign text beyond memory and my French and German dictionaries. So, well, I didn’t read all the Amazon Terms of Use in French and German (though I did glance at and recognize some words, but that and a quarter’ll get me slapped), so I hope I’m not getting screwed in these countries and the Terms are the same as the US version. Man, even the UK’s version was hard to read. Anyway, I took my main author page, plugged it into Babylon 10, and voila! Insérez la traduction ici! Don’t know about all the dashes in the German one, if I get time, will look into it, but the German one looks, you know, kinda right (dashes notwithstanding). So, if anyone’s fluent in Deutsch und Französische Sprachen, I’ve presented the three versions below.

Thanks, again, for stopping by!

English:

F. P. (Frank) Dorchak grew up in New York State’s Adirondack mountains. He attended Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona, then entered the U.S. Air Force. He performed Combat Crew duties in missile warning and satellite operations, at Cavalier AFS, North Dakota, and was a GPS mission controller and Crew Commander, at Schriever AFB, CO, but has always had a deep interest in the paranormal. Frank writes gritty, realistic paranormal fiction that delves into the supernatural, the unexplained, and the metaphysical.

French:

F.P. (Frank) Dorchak a grandi en montagnes d’Adirondack de l’état de New-York. Il s’est occupé de l’université du nord de l’Arizona, dans la hampe de drapeaux, l’Arizona, puis a présenté l’Armée de l’Air des États-Unis. Il a rempli des fonctions d’équipage de combat dans des opérations d’avertissement et de satellite de missile, au cavalier AFS, le Dakota du Nord, et était un contrôleur de mission de GPS et le commandant d’équipage, chez Schriever AFB, Cie, mais a toujours eu un intérêt profond dans le paranormal. Frank écrit la fiction paranormale graveleuse et réaliste qui fouille dans le surnaturel, l’inexpliqué, et le métaphysique.

German:

F.P. (Frank) Dorchak wuchs in der Adirondack-Bergen des Staat New York heran. Er besuchte Nord-Arizona-Universität, im Fahnenmast, Arizona, dann meldete die US-Luftwaffe an. Er führte Kampf-Mannschaftsaufgaben in den Flugwarnungs- und -satellitenoperationen, am Kavalier AFS, North Dakota durch und war- ein GPS-Auftragkontrolleur und Mannschafts-Kommandant, bei Schriever AFB, Co, aber hat immer ein tiefes Interesse an dem paranormalen gehabt. Frank schreibt kiesige, realistische paranormale Erfindung, die in das übernatürliche forscht, das unerklärte und das metaphysische.

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Going Indie—What I’ve Learned (So Far)—Part 2

by

A still from a recent example of light writing
eBookin’: Movin’ at the Speed of Light! (Photo credit: example of light writing; Wikipedia)

I’d like to buy a vowel? Heck, I’d like to buy an hour, Chuck—maybe three?

The Uninvited is now available on Amazon, through the Kindle Select Program, for $3.99.

It’s still available at Smashwords for FREE, so get it while you can—and please, write up and post some reviews! The Uninvited has also gone into the Smashwords Premium Catalog, which gets distributed to major retailers, such as Apple, B&N, Sony, et cet. While I applied for a B&N Nook account, they apparently have to check/approve something, so that hasn’t yet gone through.

Okay, I meant to include much more in my previous post, but the Internet had gone down that day for a spell, and I’d lost my list of things I wanted to include in that post. I’d since found them, since found more things to list, so…I continue:

  1. Don’t have the Internet go out on you when trying to work.
  2. Don’t lose your notes for your blog post.
  3. Tax ID #. From all I’ve gathered, you don’t need one unless you’re creating a COMPANY entity, beyond just using your author name. Now, yes, you can just go and get one, using IRS form SS-4. I know of one person who did this, but you don’t need to, because your SSN is what’s used (and is on your tax form, if you claim your writing as a business). Yes…you can get paranoid about it…but what I’ve read, my experience…is that the IT (info technology) departments at these companies—for all their faults—do take security très seriously and, well, your information is out there in many forms, and the reality of today’s world is that it’s damned hard to keep all your personal info off the Internet. There’s so much out there we don’t really even realize…and the IT departments do their best at keeping it secure. Sigh. There are courses and books written about this stuff.
  4. Create Google Alerts (yeah, actually learned this years ago, but I re-learned it and actually, finally, created some). Go out and create some. Copy sections of text from your works, stick em in there, and if they come up anywhere, the alert with, uh, alert you, and you take it from there, if it’s legit, plagiarism, or a blog post/review. Rock on.
  5. Though Smashwords has lots of great stuff to offer, what I hear from many in the Indie world and am learning myself is to separately upload the epub file to B&N’s Nook (PubIt is going to be phased out over the coming months), and Amazon’s KDP, versus Smashwords. The big advantage is that Smashwords pays royalties quarterly, while the other two do so every 60 days, and they offer other things, like affiliate programs and such I’m still learning about and don’t know enough about posting about, right now. More on these later (I hope).
  6. If going to B&N’s Nook separately, and don’t yet have an account, create one now (read all the fine print), cause they”confirm” your account and get back to you. It isn’t immediate. My formatter, Pam, told me about this weeks ago, but I simply didn’t have the time to adequately read all the fine print and do it.  I just did this Wednesday. Still waiting. See #7.
  7. Nook’s “fine print”: there is a paragraph in there, 4.G. (not LTE…) that states “You are solely responsible for ensuring that your eBook complies with all applicable local laws in all such countries.” How this is any kind of possible, I can’t fathom, but it is a legal positioning for them to absolve them for anything in your book. A CYA clause. I don’t know that it would actually hold up in court, but, hey, it’s there, read it, consider it, be aware of it.
  8. Okay, when I was uploading my novel into Smashwords, I got confused about some of the selections. On the very first page, where you input all your titles, descriptions, cover, etc, there is the bank of selections for file conversions once you upload your properly formatted Word doc file. Select ALL these formats. These are not distribution, but are used for the various downloads you can select upon buying the book. There is a separate page later on down the line—that I had to search for (it wasn’t obvious)—where you opt out of certain distribution channels. It’s called the Smashwords Channel Manager. It is here you make your distro selections. I selected everything BUT Amazon and B&N. On some of the Smashwords pages, there’s a lot of text up front, and (once you’ve loaded your work), when you scroll down, you’ll find selections, so don’t just blow through the pages without scrolling down them. When I first entered Smashwords and was “playing around” in it, I found these same pages, but they also told me I hadn’t yet uploaded a book. After doing so, and went to these very same pages, I found I “suddenly” had selections! A whole new world opened up!
  9. Screw-up #2: I had friends like Terry Wright, offering me all kinds of cool tips and such, and one of these was about ISBNs. BTW, Screw-up #1 was going “live” early. Okay, not a big deal, but hey, it makes for good conversation. ISBNs. So, I did my due diligence, read and studied and got confused and read and studied some more. Thought I had a loose handle on things, enough to know that I wasn’t supposed to use the Smashwords-assigned ISBN anywhere else. So, I input my KDP info, chuggin’ along, and before I know it, I’d found I’d entered my danged Smashword ISBN into KDP! Argggggh! I cried! Yet everything was already submitted and pending approval at KDP. So, quickly not panicking, I search for their “Contact US/Customer Service” selection and told them what happened. This morning I found: a) my book was now available on KDP, and 2) I was told I could just go back in and re-edit—remove—that ISBN (which I did). It was a little unnerving, cause it makes it look like you’re going back to The Beginning, and sets your status back to “In Review,” but that is what seems to be the process. I went back in to check Amazon, and it’s still up for sale, so that must be how it goes.  Basically, I was told it wasn’t a problem, and I’ll elaborate more on ISBNs in a future post, cause, believe me, they deserve it.

So, that’s all for now. This is definitely like drinking from a raging fire hose, but you know what—it’s worth it! It’s much different than when I first published Sleepwalkers, in 2001, and I have to admit, I love the process! Love the control. Yeah, there’s not much time for sleep and relaxing and my wife is wondering when I’ll ever come out of my “cave” (at least in the learning stage), but it’s so much fun getting some work out there again, after so many years (12; but who’s counting). The Uninvited won’t be for everyone, but for some who’ve already read it (the ones who blurbed it), they liked it, so I know some peoples out there are bound to like it. And the support out there from other Indie authors is so…heartfelt. They know what people like me are going through, cause they’ve already been there. It’s not an ego thing—at least not with me. It’s a communicative thing. It’s how we’re wired. Some are wired to jump off cliffs in “bird suits” and fly through needle-like openings in stone, and others write. Other save people’s live as cops, paramedics, or firemen and women. It’s all how we’re wired.

So, thanks, again, for all your support. And thank you, Laura, my sweet and gracious wife, for putting up with me. I know, I’m a pain, I’m driven, me and my “cave” and all that,  but thank you for hanging in there.  Love you.

Related articles

Going Indie—What I've Learned (So Far)—Part 2

by

A still from a recent example of light writing
eBookin’: Movin’ at the Speed of Light! (Photo credit: example of light writing; Wikipedia)

I’d like to buy a vowel? Heck, I’d like to buy an hour, Chuck—maybe three?

The Uninvited is now available on Amazon, through the Kindle Select Program, for $3.99.

It’s still available at Smashwords for FREE, so get it while you can—and please, write up and post some reviews! The Uninvited has also gone into the Smashwords Premium Catalog, which gets distributed to major retailers, such as Apple, B&N, Sony, et cet. While I applied for a B&N Nook account, they apparently have to check/approve something, so that hasn’t yet gone through.

Okay, I meant to include much more in my previous post, but the Internet had gone down that day for a spell, and I’d lost my list of things I wanted to include in that post. I’d since found them, since found more things to list, so…I continue:

  1. Don’t have the Internet go out on you when trying to work.
  2. Don’t lose your notes for your blog post.
  3. Tax ID #. From all I’ve gathered, you don’t need one unless you’re creating a COMPANY entity, beyond just using your author name. Now, yes, you can just go and get one, using IRS form SS-4. I know of one person who did this, but you don’t need to, because your SSN is what’s used (and is on your tax form, if you claim your writing as a business). Yes…you can get paranoid about it…but what I’ve read, my experience…is that the IT (info technology) departments at these companies—for all their faults—do take security très seriously and, well, your information is out there in many forms, and the reality of today’s world is that it’s damned hard to keep all your personal info off the Internet. There’s so much out there we don’t really even realize…and the IT departments do their best at keeping it secure. Sigh. There are courses and books written about this stuff.
  4. Create Google Alerts (yeah, actually learned this years ago, but I re-learned it and actually, finally, created some). Go out and create some. Copy sections of text from your works, stick em in there, and if they come up anywhere, the alert with, uh, alert you, and you take it from there, if it’s legit, plagiarism, or a blog post/review. Rock on.
  5. Though Smashwords has lots of great stuff to offer, what I hear from many in the Indie world and am learning myself is to separately upload the epub file to B&N’s Nook (PubIt is going to be phased out over the coming months), and Amazon’s KDP, versus Smashwords. The big advantage is that Smashwords pays royalties quarterly, while the other two do so every 60 days, and they offer other things, like affiliate programs and such I’m still learning about and don’t know enough about posting about, right now. More on these later (I hope).
  6. If going to B&N’s Nook separately, and don’t yet have an account, create one now (read all the fine print), cause they”confirm” your account and get back to you. It isn’t immediate. My formatter, Pam, told me about this weeks ago, but I simply didn’t have the time to adequately read all the fine print and do it.  I just did this Wednesday. Still waiting. See #7.
  7. Nook’s “fine print”: there is a paragraph in there, 4.G. (not LTE…) that states “You are solely responsible for ensuring that your eBook complies with all applicable local laws in all such countries.” How this is any kind of possible, I can’t fathom, but it is a legal positioning for them to absolve them for anything in your book. A CYA clause. I don’t know that it would actually hold up in court, but, hey, it’s there, read it, consider it, be aware of it.
  8. Okay, when I was uploading my novel into Smashwords, I got confused about some of the selections. On the very first page, where you input all your titles, descriptions, cover, etc, there is the bank of selections for file conversions once you upload your properly formatted Word doc file. Select ALL these formats. These are not distribution, but are used for the various downloads you can select upon buying the book. There is a separate page later on down the line—that I had to search for (it wasn’t obvious)—where you opt out of certain distribution channels. It’s called the Smashwords Channel Manager. It is here you make your distro selections. I selected everything BUT Amazon and B&N. On some of the Smashwords pages, there’s a lot of text up front, and (once you’ve loaded your work), when you scroll down, you’ll find selections, so don’t just blow through the pages without scrolling down them. When I first entered Smashwords and was “playing around” in it, I found these same pages, but they also told me I hadn’t yet uploaded a book. After doing so, and went to these very same pages, I found I “suddenly” had selections! A whole new world opened up!
  9. Screw-up #2: I had friends like Terry Wright, offering me all kinds of cool tips and such, and one of these was about ISBNs. BTW, Screw-up #1 was going “live” early. Okay, not a big deal, but hey, it makes for good conversation. ISBNs. So, I did my due diligence, read and studied and got confused and read and studied some more. Thought I had a loose handle on things, enough to know that I wasn’t supposed to use the Smashwords-assigned ISBN anywhere else. So, I input my KDP info, chuggin’ along, and before I know it, I’d found I’d entered my danged Smashword ISBN into KDP! Argggggh! I cried! Yet everything was already submitted and pending approval at KDP. So, quickly not panicking, I search for their “Contact US/Customer Service” selection and told them what happened. This morning I found: a) my book was now available on KDP, and 2) I was told I could just go back in and re-edit—remove—that ISBN (which I did). It was a little unnerving, cause it makes it look like you’re going back to The Beginning, and sets your status back to “In Review,” but that is what seems to be the process. I went back in to check Amazon, and it’s still up for sale, so that must be how it goes.  Basically, I was told it wasn’t a problem, and I’ll elaborate more on ISBNs in a future post, cause, believe me, they deserve it.

So, that’s all for now. This is definitely like drinking from a raging fire hose, but you know what—it’s worth it! It’s much different than when I first published Sleepwalkers, in 2001, and I have to admit, I love the process! Love the control. Yeah, there’s not much time for sleep and relaxing and my wife is wondering when I’ll ever come out of my “cave” (at least in the learning stage), but it’s so much fun getting some work out there again, after so many years (12; but who’s counting). The Uninvited won’t be for everyone, but for some who’ve already read it (the ones who blurbed it), they liked it, so I know some peoples out there are bound to like it. And the support out there from other Indie authors is so…heartfelt. They know what people like me are going through, cause they’ve already been there. It’s not an ego thing—at least not with me. It’s a communicative thing. It’s how we’re wired. Some are wired to jump off cliffs in “bird suits” and fly through needle-like openings in stone, and others write. Other save people’s live as cops, paramedics, or firemen and women. It’s all how we’re wired.

So, thanks, again, for all your support. And thank you, Laura, my sweet and gracious wife, for putting up with me. I know, I’m a pain, I’m driven, me and my “cave” and all that,  but thank you for hanging in there.  Love you.

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