by Nikki Amare | Mar 7, 2019 | Business, Musings
In my last post I talked about how I do my own cover design and formatting.
I’m one of those people who is super critical of my own work and I’m willing to work hard to acquire the skills I need in order to produce a finished product I’m happy with. And for the most part I prefer to do it myself because I know it will be done correctly. And if not I only have myself to blame.
Even if I plan to hire someone else to do a job I still think it’s important, as an author or business owner, to have a good understanding of what goes into building a cover, designing an interior, designing a website, etc. It ensures you’re getting what you pay for, as well as keeps you from having unrealistic expectations.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a client come back to me after the job is finished and say, “I just need this one little change. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” That “little change” then ends up taking me four hours and costing them more money than they want to spend. Why? Because it might seem like a simple thing to them, but in reality it’s not.
A perfect example of this is InDesign. This is the program I use to design interior layouts for print books. This program has a steep learning curve but I honestly believe it’s worth learning if you want to produce high quality print books. This is the same program traditional publishers use to layout their books. Unlike with Word or Pages or Google Docs or whatever writing program you use, when InDesign puts text into a document that text is linked. Every letter, every space, and every punctuation mark is like a single link in a chain. So if you decide you want to delete a paragraph it will effect everything after that point. For most pages it probably won’t matter much. But there are some where it will shift the text to the next page which could mean having to go through the entire document to make sure all the chapters are on the right facing page, reapplying master pages so they are correct, and making sure you haven’t created any orphans or widows. (Orphans and Widows are where you have a few words either at the bottom of one page or the top of the other. This is something you generally try to avoid as it gives the finished product a messy, unprofessional look.) So by making that one “little change” I would have to more or less reformat everything after that point. This is why I stress to clients that it must be a fully edited manuscript and that there will be additional charges for changes after the layout is finished.
It’s those very types of things that make it important for authors to understand what it is they’re paying for. I’m a big advocate of taking control of your career. I hear so many authors who say, “I just want to write.” I understand that, believe me. I would love nothing more than to be able to not have to worry about anything else but writing. I would love to just hand over my life and career to someone else to handle all of the business stuff. But I don’t honestly trust anyone to be as informed or to care as much about my career as I do. So while I hope to be able to get to a point someday where I can hire out certain things, I will never hand over control of my life or my career blindly to someone else. I’ve heard too many horror stories. Seen too many people lose everything because of that mentality. Yes, it’s easier to let someone else do those things you don’t want to do, but how do you know if they’re doing it right or with your best interest in mind?
Educate yourself. After all, knowledge is power, right?
by Nikki Amare | Feb 26, 2019 | Musings
In November of 2018 I decided to take a break from blogging. I had so much going on at the time something had to give and that something ended up being blogging. Here we are in February—almost March—and I’m finally getting back to blogging. You might have noticed a few things have changed. Not having to worry about blogging every week allowed me to not only to have a new logo designed and redesign my website, but it also allowed me to really focus on writing and creating a publishing schedule and marketing plan for my books.
I recently sat down and wrote out a business plan to really lay out what I want and what I expect from my writing career. I laid out short term and long term goals. Doing this really helped me get things in order and gave me a new perspective on my writing career.
I had originally planned to release book one in my fantasy series this month. At least that was the plan in May of 2018. Due to several things that were out of my control, and the fact that the series I was working on at the time has been indefinitely shelved, I won’t be publishing this month. In fact, it will probably be closer to the end of the year or even next year before I release a book.
Believe me, no one is more disappointed in this than I am
In the mean time, I’m going to be writing like a mad woman and trying to get as many first drafts finished as possible. Ideally, I would like to have six full-length novels ready before I publish the first book. The reason being, I’m not a fast writer so doing it this way will allow me to rapidly release the first three books in the series and set up pre-orders for book four. Rapidly releasing books helps to boost visibility on certain platforms. Another benefit is that I will be at least three books ahead of what’s being released so I won’t have to rush a book in order to meet a deadline. As I will never put a book out that I’m not happy with, this allows me time to make sure I put out the best book possible. And, it also allows me to be able to have a coming soon page with release dates for the next books.
It means taking longer to publish the first book, but I want to give myself the best chance with my career. And I believe that doing things this way will do that. It will also allow me to layer in information as I go. As an organic writer I don’t plot, so often times there are things that happen in say book two that I want to be able to go back to book one and foreshadow. Or I will get to book four and realize that something I said in book two is screwing up the direction things are going. So it will allow me to have a more cohesive series overall.
Book one is finished and about a third of the way done with book two. I also have several scenes for book three written out and I have a general idea of what’s going to happen in that book. Not to mention copious amounts of notes for future books.
The other thing is, it will also allow us to get moved and have me be a little more settled before I jump into publishing full tilt.
This isn’t my first time so I know how much work goes into publishing behind the scenes. A lot of authors hire out cover art, editing, and formatting. I do everything myself except for editing. I started learning to do cover art around 2010 and a few years later got into formatting. I don’t recommend new authors do their own formatting or cover art unless they’ve spent at least a year practicing on a daily basis. It took me almost two years of learning photoshop before my stuff was even close to ready for viewing. I’m one of those people who is super critical of my own work and I’m willing to work hard to acquire the skills I need. Even if I plan to hire someone else to do a job I still think it’s important to have a good understanding of what goes into building a cover, designing an interior, designing a website, etc. It ensures you’re getting what you pay for, as well as keeps you from having unrealistic expectations. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a client come back to me after the job is finished and say, “I want just this one little change. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” That “little change” then ends up taking me four hours and costing them more money than they want to spend. Why? Because it might seem like a simple thing to them, but in reality it’s not.
Because I do everything myself, I really need a enough time to write the book, edit the book, design the cover, design the promotional materials, put together the media kit, set up marketing, format the book, upload to the retailers, promote the book, etc, etc, etc. And since I don’t like to rush, as it usually ends up with me making avoidable mistakes, having multiple books ready allows me the time I need in order to keep from getting overwhelmed or burnt out. It also makes it easier to transition into hiring out certain aspects in the future if I chose to do so. Most cover artists and editors are booked out months—sometimes years—in advance. So that is something else I have to take into consideration. I would rather delay my initial release to set up a sustainable business model rather than have to possibly take a break somewhere down the road to wait on someone else’s editing or design schedule.
But as I said, doing things this way means I’m focusing on writing, writing, writing. The more books I can get finished this year, the better.
by Nikki Amare | Nov 28, 2018 | Musings
I’ll be taking a short break from blogging. Between trying to move, starting a new job, and the holidays I don’t have a lot of free time at the moment and I would prefer to spend it working on my book. For those of you who follow my blog, I really appreciate it and I will be back at it after the first of the year. And I’ll be launching my new blog design then as well. There’s a lot to look forward to for me in 2019.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday season.
I will see you in 2019.
by Nikki Amare | Nov 22, 2018 | Musings
I want to wish all of my readers in the States a Happy Thanksgiving. If you’re traveling, please be safe.
by Nikki Amare | Nov 7, 2018 | Musings
I’m just one of those people who likes to do things with my hands such as make bread.
I’ve been looking at a lot of bread recipes lately. I have my go-to white sandwich bread recipe that I’ve used since I started making my own bread when I was fifteen. But I also like to try new things instead of always staying with the same old thing all the time. Hubby and I like to experiment with food especially since we both enjoy different aspects of cooking and it’s relatively easy for us to try new things.
When I make bread I usually do two loaves at a time since that’s what my recipe calls for, but since it’s just me and Hubby we end up throwing at least half a loaf away. Two loaves is a lot for two people to eat in roughly a week. (Fresh baked bread doesn’t last the way store bought does.) Before I met Hubby I used to give one loaf to my elderly neighbor every time I made some. We’re not really friendly with any of our current neighbors which is fine with Hubby since he is always convinced he’s going to be able to eat it all this time and he doesn’t want to share. LOL
So while looking at bread recipes I came across one for freezer rolls. They are good for up to a month in the freezer and when you want some, you just pull it out, let them thaw and rise (which takes about 3 hours according to the recipe), preheat the oven to 350 degrees, brush the top with an egg white, and bake for around 15 or until done (which depends on the size of your rolls). I decided this would be a good option for us. Whenever we want bread with our supper we can just pop it in the over while we’re cooking and have fresh baked bread with our dinner. And it’s cheaper than constantly buying bread and rolls from the store. The recipe is for small dinner rolls packed into a round tin, but I decided to make small loaves and individually package them. One small loaf is plenty for me and Hubby to split for supper.
As you can see I made up two loaves the other night because I knew we would want bread, both Monday and Tuesday night, with our meals. Friday, I’ll be thawing one out to have with dinner then as well. Since we’ve started doing meal planning for the week it makes it super easy to know when we’ll want bread with our meal and when it isn’t needed.
One of the added benefits of this is that we have built in portion control since I’m not likely to thaw out another one and wait three hours for it to thaw so I can have more bread. Hubby and I both really like the way they turned out. The flavor is great, the inside is soft, and the crust is thin and flaky. I’m already thinking about ways to experiment with this recipe. I’m considering adding some flavorings to the next batch to see how that turns out. I might even do a wheat version.
I love fresh baked bread.
Making it, working with my hands, allows me time to just turn my brain off for awhile. It’s also a great way to get rid of some frustration. It’s been awhile since I’ve made bread and boy could I tell the next morning—my arms and shoulders were sore. That just means I need to make it more often so that I those muscles are being used on a regular. Hubby agrees.
by Nikki Amare | Oct 31, 2018 | Musings
People are often surprised to learn that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Especially since I’m not a fan of horror movies or anything scary.
I love that one day a year we get to be someone, or something, else. We get to leave behind all the things that demand our attention throughout the year, don a mask, and become something different than what we are.
For just a little while we get to be kids again without the worry of responsibilities. We get to be silly or clever or scary… we get to be unique. Anything we want. The possibilities are endless.
So what are you going to be?
Me?
Well, I think I’m going to be a writer.
