I have used a Paypal account for several years to invoice and accept payment for my freelance work.  Until recently I’ve never used Paypal for other traditional banking functions.  My copyeditor asked for payment via PayPal and sent me an invoice by Paypal.  Originally, we agreed I would pay half up front and the remainder when the project was finished. 

As it turned out the copy editor gave me a date when the project would be finished but it was right in the middle of my sojourn to Montreal.  I didn’t think she should have to wait while I was away for her final payment, so I agreed to make full payment prior to heading north for holiday.

I needed to make two transfers from my credit union account to paypal.  When I entered the transfer I was notified that it would be 5-7 business days for Paypal to receive the funds.  Why?  It’s all electronic, the transaction should be completed by the end of the day the transaction was entered.  I ckecked my credit union account and the funds were transferred the day I entered the transaction.  I checked my Paypal account the next day and there were no funds deposited.

It took five full business days ( 7 calendar days including the weekend) for the money to show up in my Paypal account.  So where was my money for 7 calendar days?  I called Paypal and the explanation offered was that the money went to a Federal Reserve clearing house and it took 5 business days for the transaction to clear.  What?  Why did the Federal Reserve have my money?

It all sounds a bit fishy to me.  There’s a float here and my guess is that somebody’s making money off my money or using my money temporarily without my permission.  Does anyone have a clue?

Write a comment back if you understand and let me know where my money went for 7 calendar days.     

I like quotes that inspire, provide perspective, get me in touch with myself and express a truth in simple words.  All around my office I have little pieces of paper with quotes hanging with scotch tape on bookcases, walls, etc.  I thought I would share some of my favorite.

“Do or do not.  There is no try.”  Jedi Master Yoda

“The individual human spirit is nourished by a sense of connectedness to the whole of human awareness.” I Ching

“Don’t want to be a writer.  Be writing.”  William Faulkner

“Be careful who you let read your work.   I’m a big believer in writing programs and workshops, but you can’t listen to everybody’s voice.  You have to decide who you’re going to trust.  First yourself.”  Alice Hoffman

“To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind.  To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will.  To trust yourself, to test the limits, that is the courage to succeed.”  Bernard Edmonds

This isn’t the whole collection, but I’m sure you get the flavor.  Send me your favorite quote and I’ll write a blog on quotes that folks send in.

  

When I decided to terminate my contract with the California micro publisher I was naive about the self-publishing world I would enter.  Where does a self-publisher find resources needed to publish a novel if you want to avoid the vanity houses that have been around for years.

There are private companies now that specialize in helping self-publishers find resources for editing, printing, marketing, and distribution.  I signed a contract with one.  I turned down two proposals to content edit my manuscript.  One proposal was for $5000 and the other for $2700.  A Madison friend offered to content edit in exchange for a contribution to his favorite charity.

A Sun Prairie friend offered to design a book cover.  He didn’t want to be paid but I researched the going rates for design work and gave him a check plus paid the picture he got from the internet.

My book was ready for copyediting and proofreading.  I contacted the firm and they put me in touch with an editor in South Dakota.  That editor wanted over $3000 for the job.  I was discouraged because I don’t have that kind of money to spend on my book.

My wife recalled that we attended a seminar at a local independent bookstore in April and one of the presenters was a copyeditor.  I searched through my notes and found her contact information.  She responded to my request for a proposal the same day I sent the e-mail.  The quote was very reasonable; she could start immediately and be finished in a week. Tilt! Tilt!  The copyeditor lives in Dane County, Wisconsin.

I have been fortunate to find the resources I need to self-publish Murphy’s Troubles and all within My Own Back Yard.    

I like LinkedIn because it’s professional and has allowed me to participate in a number (read +10) discussion groups for authors.  On several occasions I have posted questions to discussion groups on a writing topic and each time received very useful, direct answers.

One hazard of belong to online discussion groups is that you become a known person.  Recently I was invited to belong to a new professional social network for writers based in Australia.  The international connection intrigued me.  It was a Beta site and I had been selected to participate in the site’s beta test.   At the time I thought it was a distinction.

Soon after I joined I was asked to add a profile and I provided the minimal information.  Then there was an avalanche of messages.  There were messages from strangers asking me to be “friends”.  There were messages from “groups” asking me to join their group.  I figured out how to respond to the invitations to groups.  The groups I joined included ‘serious writers’; ‘novelists’ and others of that type.  That of course led to a barrage of posts.  I began receiving 30-40 posts a day from this one site.

Wanting to have online etiquette, I wanted to respond to those who had asked to be friends.  I couldn’t figure it out.  Not to be outdone, I simply sent a post out asking how to respond to a “friend request.”  No friends responded.  Next, I used the contact form on the site to ask how to respond to a “friend request”.  I waited 4 days without a response.

Joining the Beta site has been too much of a good thing.  Now, I’m stuck.  I don’t know how to ‘unjoin’ the beta site and I’m swamped with too much e-mail.  I’ve paid the price.  

“The world is too much with us now . . .”  T.S. Elliot.  And so it is with me.  I am posting a day early this week so that I may leave soon on a short sojourn.  In my publication update posted last week my path contains Promethean boulders.  It has been six months since I terminated my publishing contract with the California micro-publisher and the reality of publishing this year remains uncertain.

I have been disappointed that outside my small group of local friends, those offering to help are motivated by the almighty dollar.  Recently one editor proposed both content editing and proofreading.   When I responded that my manuscript had the skills of a retired Journalism Professor for content editing she countered with “many authors have two editors review their work.”  I asked twice for a proposal for only proofreading and the editor didn’t respond.  Her fee for content editing was $54/hr. and for proofreading $42/hr.  Whose interest did she have in mind when requiring an all or nothing deal?

While the path to publication is again temporarily blocked while I search for a proofreader, I need a reprieve.  I am giving myself a week to experience another culture and will return to post about that experience next week. 

At least once a week I check this blog just in case someone leaves a comment.  This week I glanced at the first sentence and was horrified to read the wrong word “below” instead of “belong”.  As we all know from experience, spell check doesn’t catch this type of anomaly.  It’s sad really.  With today’s programming geniuses you would think someone could develop a program that would also check context and suggest corrections to these types of mistakes.

Making that type of mistake embarrassing, my only solace is that nearly every writer has had that happen.  With a mistake in the lead sentence I thought I should re-read the entire post.  Guess what?  Another error, I wrote “authors experience” instead of “authors’ experience” and this error was in the second sentence!  This was a classic proofreading error.

To say the least, I am humbled by my own fallibility.  I apologize to readers for not being more careful.  I’ll strive to do better in the future.  

 I below to a lot (read +15) author/publishing chat groups on linkedin.  In the spring I posed a question on independent authors experience with create space, lulu or other sites.  I was pleased to receive responses for three weeks and a number of very detailed responses.  Due to my less than scientific survey and my own review I’ve decided to use the create space services available through Amazon.

I am now in the market for copywriting services. With my previous success I decided to query 10 of my linkedin chat groups with the question – what are you paying either per work or per page for copy editing services?  This time the responses varied.  I received four offers, with a fee quote for each.  The best response provided a website, www.the-efa.org for the Editorial Freelances Association.  I wasn’t aware such an organization existed.  All writers who need factual information on the type and professional fees charged for a variety of editorial services should visit this site.

I plan on using this site to determine if the fees proposed are current, fair and represent professional work.  For me, having an editor belong to this organization will be critical.  Once again, experience has proven that there are a myriad of ways for independent authors to network, share information, and be supportive in our “Brave New World of Publishing” (sorry Aldous).  

We are fortunate in Madison to have several independent bookstores and bookstores for used books.  One of the best is A Room of One’s Own on the corner of Gorham and State Street, lodged snugly between the State Capitol and the UW-Madison campus.

The bookstore has a long and strong record of supporting independent authors, local authors and Wisconsin authors.   At their website: www.roomofonesown.com on the left margin they list the author book readings they sponsor every month.  Generally, they host 4-6 authors.

Authors are often depicted as solitary souls and my experience for attending readings and writer’s conferences for more than 15 years it that this is a myth.  Authors like to meet readers, respond to questions and have their work heard by reading it out loud themselves.  Publishers would like us to believe the primary purpose of author book readings is to sell books.  I don’t believe it is, although, hopefully for the author it does result in at least modest book sales.  The purpose for the author is to connect with readers.  How dismal it is to spend years producing a book and then not have any contact with your readers.  It is certainly a form of purgatory if not hell itself.

Last week I attended a reading by Ben Miller of his first published work, RIVER BEND CHRONICLE.  He greeted my wife and me with a warm handshake and an introduction to his wife and several other family members.  Sadly for Ben, the crowd included only Lynette, me and the Miller family members.  Not daunted in the least Ben gave a spirited reading from a scene in his book about growing up in urban (yes, urban) Iowa; Davenport, Iowa to be specific.  He also took questions and the entire event was about an hour.

From his reading I learned Ben is an excellent writer and his prose are dense and thought provoking.  Of course I had to buy the book and have him sign it.  Ben was thrilled to have me buy his book – not because it was a sale that would blossom his income – because he met a reader – his reader.  My wife was amazed at how Ben bubbled over me and was sincerely appreciative of our attendance.  I won’t forget Ben Miller and I’ve dived head first into his book.

Please, go to an author reading whenever you get a chance.  Lonely authors need the human connection as much as anyone – maybe more.

Please take the time to comment and share your author reading experiences on my blog. 

Reading a good literary work does the heart and soul good.  With our recent celebration of Blooms Day on June 16th (a coincidence with Father’s Day this year) I thought it fitting to dive into a recently published literary novel and found John Banville’s ANCIENT LIGHT, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012.  The story is told by first person narrator, Alexander Cleave.  Alex toggles back and forth between the story of his affair with his best friend’s mother at age 15 and his transition to movie acting and the loss of his daughter in later years.

Banville language is nothing short of elegant and single sentences can be a paragraph long.  Yet, there is a rhythm and cadence to the writing that makes it a very easy read.  In some ways it’s also an “anti-novel” by modern standards because there is no plot, nothing the protagonist must have to live, and no conflict in the Donald Maass – WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL model.

Alex simply tells his story of his life from vantage of old age reflecting on what happened and not always sure if it actually happened or it’s make believe.  For a sample of the language Banville commands, here is a description Alex has of his co-star in the movie:

“She is impossibly thin, as they all have to be these days – “Oh, but I don’t eat,” she told me, with a tinkly laugh, when we broke for lunch, and I gallantly offered to fetch her a sandwich – especially on the inner sides of her upper arms I notice, which are positively concave, with sinews unpleasantly on display under the pallid skin that makes me think, I am sorry to say, of a plucked chicken.”

We know exactly what his co-star looks like through his eyes and also have his perspective woven into the description.

So, for your summer read – try a literary novel, it will do you a world of good and be a good reprise from the host of formulaic novels available anywhere.   

What is your favorite literary novel?

I write a monthly column for an Ezine, Extra Innings,http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/writing/extrainnings called Preyers, Predators and Pretenders.  On my voyage to self-publication I knew that I needed help with editing, web design, copy editing, book printing and marketing.  As with many first time self-publishers my knowledge of resources available to help me is very limited.  I signed on with a company that specializes in helping self-publishers by acting like an agent to secure competent help.

The first suggestion of the new company was that my book needed content/development/story editing.  Wanting the highest quality product possible, I agreed.  The copy acquired a quote for about $2300 to edit my 84,400 word novel.  Fine, I thought, what do I get for $2300?  I never did find out.  The person submitting the amount never took the time to make a written proposal. 

I gave the company a ten point list of items I wanted to see in any written proposal.  I received a written proposal for $5000 but the editor refused to thoroughly read my novel before beginning editing work.  Her response was “I don’t have time to read every book before I edit it.  I would have to charge a reading fee for that.  This guy doesn’t know very much about the publishing business.  Tell him to get an education in the modern publishing business.”  And that person thought I would spend $5000 with them with that attitude?

A friend who did a quick content edit for me challenged the need for another content editor.  I wrote two additional chapters to fill in some gaps and he agreed to read them and give me an assessment.  Next, I decided to have my website reviewed because in the past month my hits dropped.  The tech person made a detailed proposal and wanted $3200 – for consultation only, I would have to do all the work.  Do I look like I carry gold coins in my pocket?

The potential cost just for editing and website are $8200, then there’s copy editing, book printing and marketing.  Assuming my gross royalties will be $4.00 per book I would need to sell 2050 books just to cover the cost of editing and website.  Really?

There are predators in the self-publishing world ready to play to a writer’s ego to be read.  Self-publishers beware!