Posts Tagged "self-publishing"

Being a Busybird – Chocolate Biscuits Included

Posted by Busybird on Oct 2, 2014 in Busybird | 2 comments

For several weeks now I have been interning at Busybird Publishing, a small publishing house run by husband and wife super duo, Blaise van Hecke and Kev Howlett.

This place has a big heart and lots of chocolate biscuits. The experience here so far has just been fantastic. I’ve been able to address a lot of my weaknesses since starting here at the beginning of August. These include improving my limited editing, proofreading and copyediting skills, under the nurturing guidance of Blaise. I’ve also been doing some really fun, hands-on duties: reading submissions for their genre fiction anthology, [untitled], reading chapters from manuscripts, meeting authors and other interns, and giving general feedback on projects.

Another area I’ve been able to explore is illustration. Kev is also Busybird’s in-house illustrator. He took me under his wing and gave me helpful advice on things like storyboarding (something I’ve been looking at in class at school), and explaining his process of turning his wonderful hand drawn sketches into vibrant, eye-catching illustrations for Busybird’s children’s books.

One of the more important things that has stuck out for me is Busybird’s community spirit in the creative industry. As well as book publishing, Busybird run open mic nights once a month, welcoming emerging and established writers, musicians, poetry enthusiasts and anyone who enjoys the pleasure of hearing spoken word. The building the business runs from has a gallery element, with exhibitions running for roughly a month at a time for different artists. Then you have your writers retreats, workshops in writing and Photoshop (to name a couple), competitions, self-publishing opportunities for authors, manuscript assessments and more! *Leans against a wall and takes a breath*

In fact, I’m learning so much here, I’m already bugging Blaise and Les – Busybird’s Publications Manager – if I can stay on a bit longer when my course is finished. Les might think that’s because of the chocolate biscuits he constantly brings in, but I honestly feel like I’m just scratching the surface of what I can learn about this industry. The biscuits don’t hurt either.

I think it might be time for another coffee and a choc-chip biscuit. I better get back to editing too, I suppose.

Melissa Cleeman
Editorial Intern.

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Control Your Own Destiny

Posted by Busybird on May 15, 2014 in Busybird | 0 comments

Years ago, the only viable and credible alternative when it came to publishing was to submit to a commercial publisher and hope your book got accepted. Self-publishing (also known as vanity publishing) existed, but it was expensive, and there was no quality control. You could knock out an incomprehensible first draft and publish it. Self-publishing was also descried by the greater public.

Then partnership publishing came into vogue. There are some good people working in partnership publishing, but – unfortunately – there’s often little (if any) transparency from a lot of the partnership publisher themselves. Some partnership publishers will ‘invite’ authors to publish, as if those authors have passed a rigorous screening process. Nope. Many partnership publishers will invite you to publish that incomprehensible first draft, interested instead only in your money. You pay for a package of services (e.g. editing, layout, design), and then the partnership publisher collects a fee from that package, as well as (usually) half your royalties.

Think about that: unlike a commercial publisher, the partnership publisher invests none of their own capital in this venture. A commercial publisher carries all the financial risk of producing your book and working with you to get the best product possible. In return, you get only a small percentage of royalties (usually about 7–10%). Consequently, the commercial publisher profit or suffer depending on the fortunes of your book. With a partnership publisher, you pay for the services they provide, they pay subcontractors (usually at the lowest end of their pay-scale) to carry out those services, and then the partnership publisher collects from fees and half your royalties. If your book flops, that’s money out of your pocket, not theirs. The partnership publisher is bulletproof. You’ve paid them.

Most authors want to be accepted by a commercial publisher. There’s a branding in this acceptance, as if to say, You made it. You’re good enough to be accepted. And that’s fair enough. It’s like being accepted into an exclusive club. But whilst a stigma still exists when it comes to self-publishing, there’s also a growing acceptance – especially since the quality of the physical product can be comparable to a commercial product. More and more writers are pursuing this as a valid alternative. Matthew Reilley’s career began by self-publishing. There are any number of authors making a living out of self-publishing digitally through Amazon – and some are making fortunes. As technology progresses, it’s becoming easier and easier to do it ourselves, so why not?

If you’re tired of trying commercial publishers, and if you’re considering alternatives, you might want to control your own destiny. A partnership publisher provides services that you could easily solicit yourself – editing, layout, design, etc. Also, remember, a partnership publisher isn’t interested in quality control – most will tell you exactly what you want to hear, because once you start the process with them, they profit from fees.

Potentially, the hardest part of the whole rigmarole would seem distribution. However, you can actually approach distributors yourself. Promotion? Well, even commercial publishers are leaving that more and more in the hands of their authors; partnership publishers don’t provide anything in this regard. So you’re not any worse off alone. You can do all this yourself.

The reason for this blog isn’t to bash partnership publishers, although there are a number of unscrupulous ones out there – even operating as imprints of very credible and very, very rich publishing houses. Understand most will tell you exactly what you want to hear. But if you’re looking for a route other than hoping a commercial publisher accepts you, you can control every aspect of your book’s production, end up with a better product, and the profits will be entirely yours (outside of what bookstores, etc., might take). Or you could go straight to digital through Amazon, (which costs nothing to put a book up there).

But if you’re going to do it, make sure your book’s the best it’s going to be. Don’t just write something and publish, or redraft a handful of times or get your mum, your cousin, or your dog to edit it (unless they’re thoroughly qualified). These are contributing reasons to why self-publishing gained that stigma. If you’re going to do it, source the right people for your needs.

You get one chance to impress, so do it right.

L.Z.

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NaNoWriMo Lessons

Posted by Busybird on Feb 27, 2014 in Busybird | 0 comments

Last October, when my daughter was almost a year old, I decided that after a year of minimal progress on my writing projects, it was time to get back into it. And what better way to throw myself right in than to take on the challenge of NaNoWriMo? (National Novel Writers’ Month = write 50,000 words of your novel during the month of November. Crazy, I know.)

I’ll say up front that I didn’t make it to the 50k, but I learned some useful things along the way. It has been helpful to reflect on these things, months after the event, in order to try and continue to develop as a writer.

An unrealistic goal is better than no goal
It is good to have achievable goals to motivate you and help you track your progress. But, as I found, it can be good to sometimes take on a really ambitious goal to help push you forward. I knew that trying to write 50,000 words in a month was going to be tough. Even if I was already consistently writing and didn’t have a baby to look after it would be a challenge. Add to that a family holiday interstate, my brother’s wedding and planning a first birthday party. I knew that November was a really inconvenient time to try this and felt that if I made it to 50,000 I could pretty much do anything as a writer.

As it turned out, I stopped after a couple of weeks so I could focus on my family commitments. I could have the attitude of, Wow, I didn’t even make it halfway and feel like a failure. Instead, I think to myself, Wow! I wrote over 20,000 words in two weeks! Had I not had such a lofty goal, I would not have achieved as much as I did.

The fact that I didn’t reach my target has not put me off wanting to try again. I’m excited to give it another shot, and am looking forward to Camp NaNo, held in July.

Get words down
I have often heard quotes along the lines of ‘You can’t edit nothing.’ It’s true. There’s no point having a great idea if it stays in your head. It’s not until you get it down on paper or onto your computer that you can start working with it, crafting the words into something amazing. NaNoWriMo taught me to keep writing and moving forward. There’s time to edit later, but just get that first draft done. This is not how I usually write. I’m an editor, and like to edit my work as I go. I go for quality over quantity and cringe over moving on from an imperfect sentence. In the first few days of NaNo, I felt uncomfortable about not revisiting my work straight away. But I soon felt a liberation in trying something new and just writing and letting the words flow (and seeing the word count ticking over).

Value the writing community
The third point I want to make about NaNo is the importance of being part of a writing community. Writing is a solitary activity, but writers need not feel isolated. One reason for my lack of productivity last year in writing is that I was not proactive in surrounding myself with other writers. I didn’t have deadlines to complete any of my writing projects, I didn’t have anyone encouraging me/kicking me up the butt to keep going and I didn’t have anyone giving feedback on my work. I didn’t realise how valuable these things are until I no longer had them. For the two years prior, I studied Professional Writing and Editing and this year have decided to study once again – not just in order to finish my Diploma, but also for the benefit of workshopping and being inspired by other writers.

Each day during November I was receiving emails with pep talks from authors and updates on how others were going with NaNoWriMo. I didn’t meet any of them face to face, but there was something motivational about knowing I was not in this alone – there were thousands of other writers taking on the same challenge.

Whether online or in person, get a group of writers around you. Do a writing course, or contact your local library or writers’ centre to find a suitable writers’ group for mutual encouragement.

J.G.

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A Lofty Goal

Posted by Busybird on Feb 13, 2014 in Busybird | 0 comments

If you’ve been a regular reader of [untitled], then you’ll know that we started it (way back at the end of 2008) as a vehicle for mainstream and popular fiction, which doesn’t seem to get the same look-in as literary fiction throughout Australia. We do also publish literary fiction. We’ll give anything a shot. That’s what makes us proud of [untitled] – it’s eclectic.

A lot of work goes into putting together [untitled]. We have interns who plough through (hundreds of) submissions, we have regular content meetings to discuss the merit of stories, there’s editing (which will go on until we’re all satisfied – possibly, to the occasional chagrin of the author), copyediting, several rounds of proofreading, layout, cover design and printing.

[untitled] is not a (financially) profitable venture either, although it would be awesome if it did become one – not just for our benefit, but because it would mean that it’s evolved beyond being a little journal. It’s become a legitimate book anthology that’s selling to the masses.

That’s an interesting distinction between journal and book, despite their physical similarities. An author releases a collection of short stories, it’s a book. A publisher releases a themed collection of short stories from different authors, it’s also a book. But we (or any other small publisher) release an anthology of short stories garnered through a slushpile by authors who are still new and emerging, it’s a journal (or something equivalent).

Perhaps another (albeit unspoken) distinction are their target audiences. Books are released to the greater public. People who have no interest in being writers themselves and who simply enjoy reading will buy a book. But journals are largely read by other writers. Some journals will even stipulate that they only accept unsolicited submissions from subscribers, which I guess keeps them in that cycle, like the snake swallowing its own tail.

We want to be a book (also), though, damnit. That’s our goal. We want [untitled] to sit comfortably in bookstores, that the market – whether it’s other writers or simply readers – will recognise [untitled] as that little paperback that can always be relied on to contain great stories. A lofty goal, but also a worthwhile one.

We also hope [untitled] continues to give new and emerging writers exposure. There’s a lot of great writers around the country who are discouraged by rejection, or sometimes struggle to find homes for their stories. Go through most journals, and you’ll be able to identify a distinctive style as to what they’re looking for. Go through [untitled] and, hopefully, you won’t be able to identify anything thematically, or in regards to a specific type of prose, but stories that have been chosen regardless of their shape, size, intent, but but because they are great stories.

As an aside, there is also [untitled]‘s short story competition to consider, which closes 15th February (Saturday, so online submissions should be open until Sunday, and we’ll accept hardcopy of anything postmarked no later than the 15th). So, if you’re interested, the details for our competition can be found here (and that page contains details of how to submit in hardcopy) or you can go directly to submitting online by clicking here.

In any case, we celebrate the launch of [untitled] issue six on Wednesday, 19th February, beginning at 7.00pm. This also coincides with the return of Open Mic Night. So whether you just want to be a participant or a part of the audience, come along for what’s sure to be a great night.

Hope to see you there.

LZ.

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Approaching Revision — Part I

Posted by Busybird on Jan 30, 2014 in Busybird | 0 comments

The Little Things

 
Something regular to this blog is the demand (the harassment, really) for revision.

That’s great in theory, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can reread your piece ad nauseam without ever substantially improving it.

In this two-part blog, we’re going to list some of the little things (well, only little compared to the big picture) to look for when revising.

 
Passive Sentence
In a passive sentence, the subject in the sentence doesn’t perform the action. The action is performed on the subject. E.g.

The boy was mugged by the robber.

The action here is being performed on the boy. He was mugged by the robber. Watch out for by. It usually helps to identify a passive sentence.

Making it active, this sentence might be:

The robber mugged the boy.

Here’s another example:

Bob was driven to the football.

The action is happening to Bob. He’s being driven to the football. This could be:

Dad drove Bob to the football.

Passive writing doesn’t have the same impact and directness as active writing.

 
Expletive Constructions
Beware of phrases such as There is, There are, It is, which preface sentences and obscure the subject and action. E.g.

There is a man sitting at the bus stop.

In this case, the There is doesn’t serve much purpose. This could be rephrased as:

A man sits at the bus stop.

 
Kill adverbs where possible
If you’re using adverbs, there’s a good chance your verb isn’t strong enough. E.g.

The boy ran very quickly.

Maybe the boy did, but is there another way to say ran very quickly? Some might suggest something like:

The boy ran swiftly.

Well, yes, that’s better than very quickly, but swiftly is still an adverb here, modifying ran. Why not something like:

The boy sprinted.

Or:

The boy bolted.

Writing is about finding the right word to do the right job.

 
Kill nothing modifiers
We all have a tendency to use them. E.g.

It was somewhat hot. It quite irritated me. It was going to be practically impossible to do anything today.

What? What does somewhat hot mean? How hot was it? Quite irritated? How irritated is that exactly? Practically impossible? Really? Dismissing the fact that impossible is an absolute (something is impossible or it’s not) on a sliding scale where does practically impossible rate? Modifiers such as these – and basically, essentially, etc. – give us no real proportion.

 
Don’t belabour the point
Take this paragraph:

Jack stepped out into the night. A cold gust ran through his clothes. He wrapped his arms tight across his chest and took the first step towards the road. The wind ran icy fingers up his body and chilled his ears. He should’ve brought a jacket, but it was too late now. He was freezing!

Okay, we get it. It’s cold. This paragraph simply could’ve been:

Jack stepped out into the night and wrapped his arms across his chest.

Yes, seriously, that’s all you need. The act of Jack wrapping his arms around his chest shows us it’s cold. Of course, you could push that, as this is an extreme example. Just remember, writing is about economy: tell your reader once and trust that they’ve got it. Even if you look at something like The Lord of the Rings, which has pages of description, it’s all original description. Tolkien doesn’t go on about the same thing in the same way. Do that, and you’re likely to desensitize us, or switch us off, rather than create mood.

 
Show, don’t tell
You’ve probably all heard of this convention in writing. Let’s use Jack as an example again.

Jack stepped out into the night. It was so cold – freezing! Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so cold.

We’re being told here that it’s cold, which isn’t very evocative writing. Think of ways to show this. E.g.

Jack stepped out into the night and rubbed his hands together. His breath misted in front of him.

These are all basic examples, but they demonstrate how you can show it’s cold – rubbing hands together is something we all do when it’s cold; our breath mists also. Now we’re painting a picture of what the night’s like, rather than just telling the reader it’s cold.

 
Condense where possible
Lots of people overwrite. E.g.

A lighter sat on the table. The lighter was a gold zippo.

This occurs frequently, where writers will introduce something, and then expand on it in the next sentence. However, you can do this all at once. E.g.

A gold Zippo sat on the table.

That sentence now does the job of the two in the original example. There might be times where we want to withhold details, e.g. a character might be too far to see exact details, or they might struggle to immediately identify details. Fine, then, if you deliver details piecemeal. Otherwise, be as direct as possible.

 
Avoid repetition
We all repeat ourselves without realising it. E.g.

Andrew stepped into the bedroom and rifled through the closet. None of his suits would do. They were either old and ratty or inappropriate for a funeral. He needed something more sedate. Was a suit necessary, though? He pulled open his drawers and rifled through them. Black sweaters! That was the answer.

Andrew has rifled through his closet and his drawers. That word’s appeared twice in the same paragraph. It’s not a horrific transgression. There are words that are obviously going to be repeated, e.g. pronouns, prepositions, articles, etc. But when you have a specific word, its repetition jars. About the only time you should use repetition is when it’s as a stylistic device. E.g.

I kept punching him and punching him; punching him until he was lying back on the bench, and I had a knee planted into his chest; punching him until his face was pulped, the way an orange gets when you grind it; punching him until his skull seemed to shimmer within the flesh of his head, as if it had shattered and lost cohesiveness; punching him until I had nothing left to give, and no rage left to spend.

(Obviously that author’s deranged.)

 
Kill your favourite words and phrases
We all have them. I used to love this:

Tony walked down the hallway, then pirouetted to face her.

How can you not love a pirouette? It’s sharp, fast, and dramatic. We all have words and phrases we love. A friend admits she overuses eyes (as in people looking at one another) to communicate sentiment. These things are okay to use, but not all the time. A good tip is to compile a list of your favourite words and phrases (and the phrase might only be a combination of a handful of words) and perform a FIND for them once you’re finished, then revise them the hell out of there. You’ll find once you’re conscious of them, you’ll stop using them.

 
Kill filters
Filters are the way our protagonist connects to the world around them, or incorporates their internal monologue for the understanding of the reader. E.g.

August sat down at a corner booth and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. He watched a blonde saunter up to the bar. She was gorgeous. He thought he’d love to get a date with her, but realised she was out of his league.

Filters are things like watched, saw, heard, thought, realised, etc. However, the story’s being told through the eyes of our protagonist, so we don’t need the use of filters to connect them to what’s happening or what they’re thinking. Revising this example:

August sat down at a corner booth and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. A blonde sauntered up to the bar. She was gorgeous. He’d love to get a date with her, but she was out of his league.

The only time we might use a filter is when we want to bring specific attention to the fact that the character’s taken that action. E.g.

August and Lisa sat down in a corner booth. August watched a blonde saunter up to the bar, then turned back to find Lisa glowering at him.

Here, we mention that August watched the blonde, because it correlates with and explains why Lisa’s glowering at August. Poor August.

 
Don’t get too fancy with attributors
Attributors are things like said, asked, etc. – the verb that connects our characters to their dialogue. There’s a school of thought that you should only use said and asked, and that if your dialogue is written well enough, the reader will infer tone. If you want to be a little more diverse with your attributors, that’s fine, but don’t overdo it. E.g.

’How dare you look at her!’ Lisa vociferated.

Errr, what exactly did Lisa do? This might seem a spurious example, but plenty of authors do use grandiose attributors. In this case, this could just as easily be:

’How dare you look at her!’ Lisa shouted.
‘How dare you look at her!’ Lisa screeched.
‘How dare you look at her!’ Lisa bellowed.

As you can see, there are simpler options. Don’t go overboard.

 
Avoid cliches
Cliches are phrases that have become so overused, they’ve lost all meaning. E.g.

She was the love of August’s life. When Lisa left him, August’s heart broke. But as quick as a flash, he got back into dating.

Ummm, what? Are things like love of my life, heart broke, as quick as a flash – and every other cliche – really communicative of what they’re trying to say in any meaningful or evocative way? Cliches are also lazy writing. If you’re going to use a cliche, find another way to say it.

 
Kill the use of ‘suddenly’
‘Suddenly’ is such a Year 7 word, e.g. I was walking down the hallway, and suddenly a ghost appeared! It’s so melodramatic and pseudo-shocking. Take this example:

Suddenly, the door crashed open.

Does the use of suddenly improve that sentence. Isn’t the act of the door crashing open implying a suddenness? Couldn’t it just be:

The door crashed open.

There might be times to use suddenly, but beware its overuse, as it’s become common. As an exercise, look out for it in the book you’re currently reading. It’ll surprise you how often and suddenly it appears.

 
Cut what’s unnecessary
If there’s something you can cut from your writing and it doesn’t affect the piece – it doesn’t affect the plot, the characterisations, the motivations, or anything like that – then cut it. There’s no great way to demonstrate this in a short passage, but think about movies nowadays when they’re released on DVDs with deleted scenes. Sometimes, the deleted scenes are interesting, but you can see why they didn’t make the final product – their omission has affected nothing. A journalist once told me that you can have interesting facts, but if they have no bearing on the article, then they’re unnecessary. Same with any other form of writing.

 
Kill tautologies
A tautology is a redundancy in writing, the repetition of the same definition in different words. E.g.

I hope this blog has improved your writing for the better.

Spot it? That statement suggests hoping this blog has improved your writing and then adds for the better. In this case, how else could you improve your writing? For the worse? Both passages are saying the same thing. This is a tautology. Look out for them.

That’s it for this week. Next week: Looking at the big picture.

LZ.

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