A Peek​ Behind the Curtain

I was at dinner with my father-in-law and I told him I was in the middle of publishing The Reluctant Agent . He asked, “How do you publish your book?” to which I replied, “With a lot of cussing.” (Note: That is no exaggeration…more on that later). I’ve been thinking about that ever since, and I thought I’d share what I do.

1. Finish the damn book – This means getting the book edited, proofread, and proofread again.

2. If you’re using something other than Amazon for print, get ISBN numbers – If you only use Amazon for print, you don’t need an ISBN number for your book. Likewise, you don’t need an ISBN number for e-books. But if you use another service, you WILL need an ISBN number.

3. Format the book – Here, I have a bit of a secret weapon. I use a piece of software called Vellum that only runs on a Mac. It does all of the heavy-lifting of formatting my Word document into something that looks professional. I didn’t know about it during the first printing of The Reluctant Captain and the difference between the two editions is night and day. Vellum costs approximately $200.00, but I think it’s some of the best money I’ve spent as a writer. There is also a free alternative at reedsy.com. One drawback to both of the tools is that you don’t have complete control over the formatting (for example, I wanted to use the cover font for the chapter titles, but that wasn’t possible). The reedsy tool only has three choices of book styles, while Vellum has anywhere from 3-7 styles for each element of the book.

4. Create the print and e-book versions of the book – I opt to try to sell my book in as many places as possible, so I have to come up with e-book versions for Amazon, Apple, Nook, and Kobo, as well as the PDF for the print book. Here is the other reason that Vellum is worth it – I can push one button and generate all of these formats AT ONCE.

5. Create the cover for the e-book – This is relatively easy. Once I have my scanned cover art, it’s pretty straight forward to make the cover for the e-books – the only trick is making sure you have the correct size, resolution, and format for each platform.

6. Create the cover for the print books – This is where the cussing occurs. To produce hardcover and paperbacks, your cover has to fit in a specific template provided by the printer. In my case, I use Amazon for the paperback version I sell on Amazon and I use IngramSpark for a wide distribution paperback and the hardcover edition. Each platform has its own requirements for size, positioning, print resolution, and format. The only tool I have for this is GIMP, an open source tool that pretends to be like Photoshop. It is not very easy to use (selecting and copying a section of a picture seems to only work on a whim). So that’s the beginning of the cussing. Then you upload it. And it’s often rejected immediately because the resolution wasn’t correct or it’s the wrong format. So you fix it and re-submit. And it works…except you get an email in a day or two that tells you that something is too close to the edge or not close enough, and it’s back to the drawing board. To give you an idea, I have 9 copies of The Reluctant Agent hardback cover on my computer. As you can imagine, there was a whole lot of cussing going on!

7. Upload the files and information to all of the platforms, set your prices…and wait – You would think after writing one hundred thousand words for the novel, writing the sales description would be easy…and you are wrong. It is tough. On some platforms, you have a limited number of characters (not words) for your description. But eventually, you wade through it and if you’re lucky, everything is accepted in a couple of business days. If not, you’re back to any step between 3 and 6…and repeat ad nauseam.

In the end, it really is worth all of the cussing. I’m very happy with how the hardcover editions of both The Reluctant Captain and The Reluctant Agent look. They look like real books! Which reminds me…the links to buy The Reluctant Agent are over there on the right. You can also sign up for my occasional newsletter. It’s an easy way to keep updated on what I’m doing!

Until next time,

Happy Journeys!

Mike

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All Over But The Shouting…

This past Saturday marked the release (finally) of The Reluctant Agent. I opted to release it on the day of the Sherburne Arts Festival. Here are a few actions shots of my day:

For my local arts festival, I think I did rather well. I sold 18 copies of The Reluctant Agent, but also sold 7 copies of The Reluctant Captain, which has been out for 4 years now! I want to thank everyone who came out and supported me by buying my book. It really meant a lot to me. After breaking down the tent and hauling the 6 boxes of books home, we went out for a celebratory dinner at Ray Brother’s Barbeque:

What’s Next?

I’m a bit at a loss as to what to do next, so I may leave it up to you, the people who read my blog. I mentioned before that I had started a horror story anthology that’s maybe a third of the way completed or I can dive right into the next story in the Reluctant series (if you’ve read The Reluctant Agent, you’ll already have an idea of what it will be). I just put up a poll on my Facebook page so you can vote and tell me what you want!

I’ll be taking a vacation shortly and I plan to buckle down after that. And you can help me decide where I should focus my efforts.

Contest Results

And the winner of the signed copy of the hardcover of The Reluctant Agent was…no one. I didn’t receive a single entry. I may decide to run this contest again at some point, so I won’t give away any clues. So read (or re-read) The Reluctant Captain. I tell you that if you are moderately exposed to geek culture, you can at least come up with one reference.

Thanks

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank everyone who is responsible for The Reluctant Agent:

• My Beta Readers Keven, Melanie, Michael, and Donna – Thanks for your feedback on the early draft. It was instrumental in making the story better
• Emilee Jayne Janitz – Thanks for a cover that was better than I imagined
• Jeannette Armstrong-Collins – Thanks for a wonderful job of editing my manuscript!
• My family – Thanks for your support and love.

And finally, thank you to everyone who bought a copy of my book! It means so much to me!

If you haven’t gotten your copy, you can buy it in multiple formats:

• The ebook is available in many formats here
• The paperback is available here
• The hardcover is available here

I’ll let everyone know the results of the poll in just over a week’s time.

Until then,

Happy Journeys!

Mike

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Drum Roll, Please…

It’s time for the official unveiling of the new cover of The Reluctant Agent!

When Can I Get the Book?

The Reluctant Agent will be released on June 8th!

I’m also happy to announce that The Reluctant Agent is available for pre-order on Amazon (ebook), Apple Books, Nook, and Kobo. The paperback version will soon be available for preorder on Amazon as soon as I deal with a cover issue.

I have a handy dandy link right here that will take you to the e-book format of your choic: books2read.com/u/brpLB7

I will also be at the Sherburne Arts Festival on Saturday, June 8 where you can buy copies of The Reluctant Agent and The Reluctant Captain in hardcover or paperback editions and I will be happy to sign them!

Membership Has Its Privileges

Members of my newsletter got to see the cover first – see, membership does have its privileges! And speaking of my newsletter, I’m running a contest open only to members of my newsletter. If you want to enter, you have to be a member, but that’s easy…all you have to do is sign up over there on the right.

I’m giving away a signed copy of the hardcover edition of “The Reluctant Agent” Here are the rules:

††1. In “The Reluctant Captain”, I hid a number of Easter eggs (references to pop culture or science fiction) in the book. The winner of the contest is the person who finds the most Easter eggs. For example, a character’s name may be a reference to another character in a book, show, or movie. In the event of a tie, I will draw the winner from the entries with the most Easter eggs.

2. Mail your entry to mike@reluctantauthor.com

3. Only one entry per email address will be allowed. If you send two or more emails from the same email address, I will only accept the first email. If you want to subscribe on more than one email address, more power to you!

4. If you send two or more emails from the same email address, I will only accept the first email. If you want to subscribe on more than one email address, more power to you!

5. All emails must be received by 11:59 PM on May 31, 2019.

6. I will be the sole arbiter of what constitutes a correct Easter egg reference.

7. Once the results are tabulated, I will email the winner for shipping information.

8. If there are no entries, I won’t give anything away. So, it’s better to enter something than not.

As of this writing, I’ve received zero entries. There’s still time to sign up and enter!

That’s the exciting news for now.

Until next time, Happy Journeys!

Mike

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Spring Awakening

I hope this finds you well! Spring still hasn’t overcome Old Man Winter’s grip over Central New York, as evidenced by the snow falling on my way home from work last night. It’s not completely out of character for our area, but I have honestly had enough.

Spring is a time for growth and rebirth. I have many exciting events popping up like the Russian forget-me-nots that seek to overwhelm my lawn every spring. They are:

Cover for The Reluctant Agent – I’ve got the art back for the cover of The Reluctant Agent and I love it! I need to get it scanned so I can finish the overall cover design, but I promise I will be unveiling it soon!

The inaugural edition of my email newsletter went out – At long last, I kicked off my email newsletter! While I didn’t think it was that bad, I did manage to have three people unsubscribe. I’ll be posting another one very soon; so if you want to join the fun, the link to join my email newsletter is on the right over there. It’s painless and I promise not to fill your inbox!

Editing is nearly complete for The Reluctant Agent– My editor is in the home stretch of editing my book. I’ll give it a once over when all of the edits are complete and it should be ready to publish.

I’ve started plotting out the next yet untitled Reluctant book – I’m trying something different and I’m actively plotting out the whole book before I start, instead of having just a rough outline and winging it (my usual approach). I was influenced by two books I’ve read in the last several months: 2000 to 10,000: How to write faster, write better, and write more of what you love by Rachel Aaron and The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. The gist of Rachel Aaron’s book is the best way to be able to write quickly is to plan what you are going to write before you start so you have everything you need (including research) when you start. The Story Grid is a methodology for objectively analyzing a story. Although it’s primary use is for editing, the information about story structure that it provides is really helpful in laying out the book. My hope is that by spending more time up front laying out the story and completing the research, I’ll be able to complete the next book much faster. We’ll see how this experiment nets out.

What’s next?

There’s more stuff to come. The unveiling of the new cover, the kick off of a contest to win a signed copy of the hardcover edition of The Reluctant Agent, and its eventual release!

If you are interested in entering the contest, you can avoid the rush and sign up for my email newsletter just over there to your right. It’s (mostly) painless and it will give you a chance to enter the contest and be the first to know when the new book will be available.

Until next time, happy journeys!

Mike

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Long, Long, Long

It’s been a VERY long month since I last wrote.

First, The Good News

Today I received the first print of the hardcover edition of The Reluctant Captain! Forgive the bad picture:

It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye

My mother, Myrtle Tefft, passed away on February 21. My mother was an intensely private person, so I’ve only alluded here to the fact that her health was failing. Although it wasn’t a surprise, it was a shock that she went so quickly. Thankfully, she passed away in her sleep.

I owe much of who I am to my mother. My mother was born in 1930 in London, England and grew up during the Blitz. My mother was tenacious (which is the polite way of saying she was stubborn) and never afraid to stand up for herself if she thought she was being treated unfairly. I get those traits from her without a doubt.

Although my mother immigrated to the States in 1958, she kept many traditions from England alive. Until I went to college, I drank tea far more extensively than coffee, starting on tea with large doses of milk and sugar. Every year, my mother made Christmas Pudding and, for my birthday, Steak and Kidney Pudding (Note: For my American friends, a pudding means a steamed cake – in the case of Christmas – or pastry in the case of Steak and Kidney. It is NOT the pudding we eat out of cups). On Sunday dinners, if we had roast beef, we always had Yorkshire Pudding (popovers). We would often play an English pub game called Shove Ha’penny. The board is a slate with several lines engraved on it. You would “shove” English Ha’pennies (half pennies) and try to get them in between a set of two lines. It’s rather like shuffleboard.

With this comes a change for me. For nearly the last year, Mom was either in a hospital or nursing home at distances ranging from 10 to 50 miles. I tried to visit as often as I could (about every other day). As a result, most of my evenings were taken up with travel. Now, I have to adjust to having time and knowing what that really means – my mom is gone. I’m still coming to grips with it. I’ve found ti hard to conecentrate on anything. In fact, this is the most meaningful amount of writing that I’ve done since she passed.

I know that I will make peace with this, be able to move on, and start writing again. My mother would want that. She often asked me how my writing was going when I visited her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t have time to write because I was visiting her, so I would say, “It’s going,” or some other non-committal answer.

Before I sign off, I want to share one of my favorite pictures of my mother and I. It was taken on Mother’s Day in 2015;

Until next time, Happy Journeys!

Mike

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