Book reviewer gives advice to self-publishers

Publishing is a learning process. With every win
and loss you get better at playing the game.

There’s a lot of similar information available for writers researching their self-publishing options. Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief and founder of the Midwest Review of Books, has compiled a list of what turns him off when he’s asked to review a self-published book.

• Sub-standard covers 
• Interior flaws (typos, grammatical errors and *gulp* ugly, hard-to-read fonts) 
• Content categories that are flooded in the marketplace 

To overcome these potential pitfalls, Jim says it’s important for self-published authors to appear and act as maturely and professionally in every aspect of contact with reviewers, booksellers and everyone else in the publishing industry they encounter, solicit or market to. And, he says, the book has to speak for itself. It has to be flawless inside and out to compete in the marketplace.

The best piece of advice Jim gives authors is, “Don’t expect to make a profit, or even recoup your initial investment.” Your book represents a foot in the publishing industry’s door. “Expect to learn new (and hone existing) publishing and book marketing tips, tricks and techniques,” and prepare for the long haul. Publishing is a learning process. With every win and loss you get better at playing the game.

For more information about the Midwest Review of Books, click here. For more information about how Sudden Publishing can help you get your book in print, contact us.

The difference between a long story, a short story and a short-short story

Isaac Asimov knows.

100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories

In his introduction to the anthology 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories (Avon, 1978), Isaac Asimov gets to the point about why some stories are better short and why some short stories are better short short.

In science fiction, experience seems to show that long stories have an advantage over short ones. The longer the story, all things being equal, the more memorable.

There is reason to this. The longer the story, the more the author can spread himself. If the story is long enough, he can indulge himself in plot and subplot with intricate interconnections. He can engage in leisurely description, in careful character delineation, in thoughtful homilies and philosophical discussions. He can play tricks on the reader, hiding important information, misleading and misdirecting, then bringing back the forgotten themes and characters at the moment of greatest effect.

But in every worthwhile story, however long, there is a point. The writer may not consciously put it there, but it will be there. The reader may not consciously search for it, but he'll miss it if it isn't there. If the point is obtuse, blunt, trivial or non-existent, the story suffers and the reader will react with a deadly, "So what?"

Long, complicated stories can have the point well-hidden under cloaking layers of material. Academic people, for whom the search for the point is particularly exciting, can whip their students to the hunt, and works of literature that are particularly deep and rich can elicit scholarly theses without number that will deal with the identification and explanations of points and subpoints.

But now let's work toward the other extreme. As a story grows shorter and shorter, all the fancy embroidery that length makes possible must go. In the short story, there can be no subplots; there is no time for philosophy; what description and character delineation there is must be accomplished with concision.

The point, however, must remain. Since it cannot be economized on, its weight looms more largely in the lesser over-all bulk of the short story.

Finally, in the short short story, everything is eliminated but the point. The short short story reduces itself to the point alone and presents that to you like a bare needle fired from a blowgun; a needle that can tickle or sting and leave its effect buried within you for a long time.

For advice and development of your long, short or short short story, visit http://www.suddenpublishing.com/. 

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

Great cover art.

Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories is a collection of 14 ghost stories as chosen by acclaimed writer Roald Dahl. [From Wikipedia: Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter. Born in Llandaff, Cardiff, to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander.]

I read the first six stories: W.S. by L.P. Hartley, Harry by Rosemary Timperley, The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith, In the Tube by E.F. Benson, Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperly and Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie.

The stories are solid as ghost stories go. My hang up is ghost stories don’t have pop! A third to half the story is concerned with how the ghost came to be a ghost, the other half sets up the main character to somehow get caught alone with the ghost. Most times the character doesn’t know the ghost is a ghost until the predictable “reveal”.

In The Corner Shop, no shit, the last paragraph reads:

“Oh, now I understand!” She exclaimed. “You mean Bessie’s father! But Bessie and I are only step-sisters. My poor father died years and years ago.” 

You mean the creepy old man in the antique shop, w-w-was … a-a-a … g-g-ghost! SHRIEK!

But as Dalh puts it in the introduction, I good ghost story should, “give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts.” The stories were vaguely tired, but as a read I couldn’t help imagining some interesting things.

Read the book if only for the intro. In 1958, Dahl was commissioned to collect 24 short ghost stories and write one of his own for a new television series called “Ghost Time”. Apparently this series was supposed to compete with the likes of The Twilight Zone, which was launched in 1959, but it was never made it past the pilot stage. Ghost Time was scrapped by producers because they felt the story the pilot was based on would offend Catholics—a target demographic.     

Whoops.

If you want to write a book, contact Sudden Publishing at http://www.suddenpublishing.com/.

The Voice of the Night by Dean Koontz

The Voice of the Night is the second of Koontz's books I've read in the past couple weeks. The first was Brother Odd, part of the "Odd Thomas" series.

The Voice of the Night has a well-developed main character, Colin, though falls into some of the traps of the "shy, skinny, brainy and bespectacled 14-year-old", including the essential overactive imagination and sci-fi addiction.

Narration is third person.

Dialogue

Koontz uses rushes of alternating dialogue without attribution:

"Is she taking good care of you?"
"Sure."
"Are you eating well?"
"Yeah."
"You're still so skinny."
"I eat real well."
"She's not much of a cook."
"She does okay."

This technique keeps a fast pace and it's clear who's talking; however, it's a tennis match which may lead to a reader skimming rather than digesting the content. It's like eavesdropping on a conversation in fast forward.

Conjunctions

Koontz, also uses the conjunction "for" in a number of instances instead of "because".

"When the telephone rang, he had to run into his mother's room to answer it, for he had no extension of his own." 

The book was written in 1980 and is a modern theme. Using "for" as a conjunction gives the passage an older feel which doesn't fit with the overall language of the story.

Notable Descriptions

Describing the family of Roy, the villain:

"There was a peculiar stiffness in the way they talked among themselves, as if they were reciting lines from a script they hadn't learned very well. They were so formal. They almost seemed ... afraid of one another."

Describing the shooting of sea gulls with shotguns from the deck of the Erica Lynn fishing boat:

"The guns fired and the gulls burst apart in the sky. Thousands of tiny droplets of blood sprayed up like beads of molten copper ..."

Cheese ...

Describing Colin's first movie date with classmate Heather:

"Sitting in the cool theater, in the velveteen shadows, in the pale, flickering light cast back by the screen, holding his girl's hand, he thought he knew what heaven must be like."

Interesting Words (a.k.a. Say what?)

rictus 

rictuses, plural
Noun: A fixed grimace or grin: "Ned's smile had become a rictus of repulsion".

reconnoiter
Noun: An act of reconnoitering.
Verb: Make a military observation of (a region): "they reconnoitered the beach before the landing"; "the raiders were reconnoitering for further attacks".

References to Other Books

The narrator refers to the 1951 sci-fi novel The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein as "great". Also, refers to John Campbell's Who Goes There? and Theodore Sturgeon's The Professor's Teddy Bear as "pulsing with a rich vision of evil" [paraphrased].