I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea what to write for today’s post. Instead of blathering on about nothing of consequence, I shall instead attempt to answer the age old question: What is the best kind of pizza?
Yes, I know there aren’t many options — it would only let me enter five. Feel free to add your own! The winning pizza will be crowned King of Pizzaland.
Unrelated media of the day:
You guys are in for a treat, because I have an extra special iUniverse story to share with you today.
As you may already know, my book, Imminent Danger, is having some issues with being filed under the correct genre. If you pop over to Amazon.com and look up my book, you’ll find that the Kindle version is listed under the following categories:
Books > Children’s Books
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children’s eBooks
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Children’s Fiction
This is, obviously, incorrect. Imminent Danger is Young Adult, or Teen. It is not a children’s book. Take one look at the cover and that becomes glaringly obvious. So … what to do?
Back in January, I contacted iUniverse and asked them to fix this problem. They said they would request that Amazon change the genre listing. Fair enough. But over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that other sites also filed the book incorrectly. So I called iUniverse yesterday about the issue, and today they sent me their complete list of book categories and told me to pick the categories I wanted my book listed under. One problem: these are the same categories they sent me back in November, when my iUniverse rep told me that I had to list the book as Juvenile Fiction because a Teen category didn’t exist. According to my rep, online retailers like Amazon would then list the book as Teen. Clearly, they didn’t. So when I got this email today which basically wanted me to repeat the exact same process I went through in November, I got a little irked.
So I called them. After chatting with a customer service lady for about 45 minutes and not getting anywhere, I asked to be transferred to her supervisor. He was a bit more helpful, and after another half hour or so, he promised he would send a request to Amazon and Barnes & Noble that they change my genre to YA / Sci-fi / Romance. Apparently he can’t contact other online retailers (like Chapters.Indigo.ca) directly, and I didn’t understand his reasoning on that at all, but he did say that once the genre listing changes on Amazon and B&N, other online retailers should follow suit. I don’t believe that for one second, but I figure I should pick my battles.
Anyway. During this phone call, I also suggested to him (supervisor guy) that iUniverse add some sort of Teen book category to their book category list. He said it was a great idea, and that I should send an email with my suggestion. I had to ask him about four times who I should send the email to, which was an interesting exercise in patience and repetition, and he finally divulged that I should just send it to Customer Support, addressed to “iUniverse Management”. Vague, but okay. I’ll bite. Let’s see where this goes.
Here’s a copy of the letter I sent them. I think I hit the various points quite nicely, although I worry that I came off a bit patronizing, as I repeated my point many, many, many times. You can be the judge:
Dear iUniverse Management,
As per the suggestion of the iUniverse customer support supervisor I spoke with this morning on the phone, I would like to suggest that you add a new book category to your book category list. This book category would be called “Teen” — as in, similar to Juvenile Fiction, except intended specifically for a teenage audience. If you go on Amazon.com or similar websites, you will find that they have tens of thousands of Teen books, listed under a Teen category. In fact, one of the current best-selling series — Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer — is a Teen book. At the moment, iUniverse does not have a Teen category, which I believe is an oversight that should be corrected immediately.
I would like to share my personal struggle with this issue with you, so that you can understand why it’s necessary to create a Teen category. My novel, Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It, which I have recently published through iUniverse, is a Teen novel. It is about high school aged characters doing high school age-appropriate things — which includes consuming alcohol, using minor curse words, and having complicated romantic entanglements. These are elements which do not belong in a children’s story. But because you do not have a Teen book category, I had to list it as Juvenile Fiction. My iUniverse rep assured me that when the book went up on sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, these third party sites would list it as Teen. They did not — and why would they? They listed it as Children’s Literature because the only information they received from iUniverse was that the book category was Juvenile Fiction — i.e., Children’s Literature. Amazon doesn’t have time to read through every book that is submitted to them to see if a Juvenile book should actually be Teen — the only thing they have to go on is what iUniverse tells them. And in this case, iUniverse told them it was a children’s book, which it is not.
Therefore, I propose that you add a Teen book category to your list of book categories. You will probably also want to add sub-genres to that, like Teen / Science Fiction, Teen / Supernatural, Teen / Romance, Teen / Fantasy, etc.
“Teen” is not a passing fad — this is a legitimate genre, as you will see if you go to virtually any online retailer. iUniverse is misrepresenting their authors by forcing them to submit books under the Juvenile Fiction category rather than a Teen category. We Teen authors are missing out on potential sales, because our target audience is people who read Teen books, and they won’t be able to easily find our books if they are listed in the Children’s Literature section. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of this, but missed sales for iUniverse authors means missed sales for iUniverse.
I hope you will consider my proposal. As the situation stands right now, I have very little motivation to self-publish another book through iUniverse, because I write Teen fiction, and the hassle of getting another of my books listed under its correct genre is not something I want to go through again.
Thank you for your time,
Michelle Proulx
Will my message ever get to elusive “Management”, whoever that is? It’s hard to say. I hope so. It’s beyond ridiculous that they don’t have a Teen book category, and it’s also beyond ridiculous that they apparently won’t even consider adding one unless they get the suggestion in an email from one of their authors.
Phew. It feels great to get all this off my chest. I can only handle so much silliness in one day.
Unrelated media of the day:
Source: http://i.imgur.com/vDEJOg2.jpg
Unrelated video of the day:
Remember how I was very amused a few days ago by the fact that it cost less money to buy my own book from a third party source, rather than direct from the publisher (iUniverse)? Well, the 100 copies I ordered through Chapters.Indigo.ca arrived yesterday, and they’re glorious. Share in my joy with me via my latest vlogging attempt:
So they’re all here, they’re awesome, and now I have to figure out what to do with them all. Definitely giveaways of some sort … I’ll have to look into a book signing … a couple copies donated to the library … and then whatever else I can come up with.
As for the randomly faded dropcaps in the softcover version, I’ve contacted iUniverse about it, and they’re looking into a solution. Mother is righteously outraged on my behalf (“Your book consultant assured you that the printer copy was just a fluke, and now you’ve got 50 copies with that same fluke! You should be furious with them for lying to you! They need to fix this immediately and apologize!”), whereas I am taking a more zen approach. Expect the worst, and nothing can disappoint you. It’s working out well so far. I’m not going to let up until iUniverse figures out why this is happening and fixes it, obviously, and I’ll explain that I’m displeased, but I don’t think anger is the way to go.
Other than that … life is good. Got ma books, got ma magnets, got ma … slippers? There’s no stopping me now!!!
Unrelated media of the day:
Truth.
I’m feeling introspective today. Bear with me.
I feel that there are two types of book memories. There are the big memories, like a major plot point, where you look back and think, “Aw man, I never saw that coming, that was so cool!” And there are the little memories, like a line of dialogue you thought was so hysterical you fell off your bouncy ball laughing. Both are important, and both are necessary to create a great story.
I’ll tell you why I’ve been thinking about this. I’m always reading about writers who swear by their outlines. And they have a good point — how can you make sure you include everything you want to include in the story if you don’t have it written down? Unless your memory is unbelievably fantastic, in which case never mind. But I’ve tried making elaborate outlines, and here’s what happens: it becomes a plodding, paint by numbers exercise in soul-sucking futility, and while I hit all the big memories (the plot points), the little memories are much, much harder to come by.
Maybe it’s just me. I’m horribly disorganized anyway, so maybe outlines and I just don’t mix by default. But when I have an outline that I’m trying to turn into a story, I follow it step by step, doing exactly what it says, and I feel like I lose some of the spark that comes from just attacking a project with a handful of characters in your head, and a vague idea of where they’re going to end up.
So when I go back and look over what I’ve written, I’ve hit all the relevant plot points — oh boy, have I hit them. But that’s all the characters do. They’re so focused on getting from one pivotal scene to the next that they never stop to have fun, or say an amusing quip, or do something ridiculous, like have an impromptu game of laser tag and fall into a vat of space jelly.
I feel like outlines stifle me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. At the same time, I’m sure there are perfectly brilliant authors out there who use outlines all the time, and produce stunning pieces of literature. It probably just boils down to personal taste.
My personal strategy is to jot down very brief notes on what will happen in the story, and then make up the details as I go. For example, in Chasing Nonconformity (the sequel to Imminent Danger), I know that the gang will head to the planet Chingu to retrieve something very valuable that they’ve misplaced. I have several plot points down for what they’ll do when they’re on the planet, but other than that, they can really get up to whatever the heck they want. At the moment, Eris has decided to go shoe shopping. And why not? I can always cut it out later if it doesn’t work with the flow of the story.
That’s the beauty of writing a book — you’re the author! You can write whatever you want, and you have no one to answer to except yourself! Well, and your fans. And your friends and family. And the general public. And reviewers. And the …
Maybe I should start that outline after all.
Unrelated media of the day:
I’ll be honest, I haven’t kept track of what I’ve posted under the Unrelated Media section, so I have no idea if I’ve shared this already. Oh well. Don’t watch it if you’ve already seen it! Or do watch it. Whatever floats your tiger-infested lifeboat.
In today’s unrelated media, Buzz Aldrin raps about how awesome it was to be an astronaut.
Amazon is apparently making authors pay refunds to customers who bought their books because they’ve gone from self-published to traditionally published. Worrisome. Very worrisome.
I can’t remember if Victoria actually asked me to review this, or if I picked it up for free one day and decided to write a review, but either way, on with the show!
The Book
The Crimson League (Book One in the Herezoth Trilogy)
The Genre
Fantasy
The Author
Victoria is a New Orleans girl, born and raised, with an appreciation for the charm of the Deep South. She has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and English and a master’s degree in Spanish literature, all from the University of Alabama. She started college as a journalism major and worked a year as a staff reporter for the Alabama student newspaper, “The Crimson White.” That experience that helped her realize, once and for all, that her love for writing lay with fiction. She started enrolling in creative writing classes the following semester.
The Plot
What would you do if you were seventeen, a woodworker’s daughter, and your kingdom’s sorcerer/dictator was determined to see you dead?
Join Kora Porteg in the kingdom of Herezoth as she aids her homeland’s organized resistance. Opposing the sorcerer who slew the royal family, Kora soon discovers she’s a sorceress herself, as well as the unwitting subject of an old and often mocked legend. Though she accepts she can have no place in Herezoth after civil war should end, she fights alongside the usurper’s sister, a thief, a scholar, two telekinetic brothers, and other members of the group that calls itself the Crimson League. As their prospects deteriorate, the League has no choice but to make a final stand against its foe and the army that supports him.
The Review
I enjoyed this book, although I do admit I have mixed feelings toward it. I definitely enjoyed the magic system presented in the book — shouting magic words and making awesome things happen is a hallmark of the fantasy genre. I loved the villain, Zalski. I thought he was suave, and clever, and weirdly honourable despite him being totally evil, and if he hadn’t killed so many people I would have wanted him to succeed and become supreme dictator. His motives are very real, very complex, and he was all around a great antagonist. Kora (the protagonist) was feisty, which I liked, and by the end of it she was doing pretty much whatever she wanted, and to heck with anyone who got in the way. I wish more female protagonists were like this! And there were some really excellent scenes that I’ll remember for years to come.
Now for the things I didn’t like so much. This one is purely personal taste, but I would have liked more romance in the book. Romance is brought up a few times, but it never felt … real for me. More like it was added as an afterthought. I’m sure it wasn’t, of course, but that’s what I took away from it. The other thing that struck me as a bit odd was that, when reading the book, I kept reaching the end of conflicts and thinking, “This pretty much wraps up the current plot arc, this must be the end of the book”. Except then I would look at my little progress bar at the bottom of my eReader and discover I was barely 25% through the book. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that the plot is very undulating. Instead of having a slowly building rising action, it kind of goes lull, dramatic moment, lull, dramatic moment, lull, etc. Things got a bit more intense when people started dying off like flies, but overall … I don’t know, I feel like this novel could have been split into two books, and then the author could have added more character development or something to flesh out the world more.
In conclusion, The Crimson League was a fairly slow yet entertaining read in the tradition of classic swords and sorcery fantasy.
The Rating
4 out of 5 stars
Check out Victoria’s site here.
Unrelated image of the day:
I don’t have much time to chat today, due to my continued inability to keep up with my work hours. Therefore, I shall share the two new gorgeous pieces of fan art that the incomparable Celeste DeWolfe created for me whilst I was off crusin’, and then I shall share the song I’m currently listening to on repeat, because why not, and then I shall bid you all adieu. So …
Fan Art #1: Eris Steps Out of the Shower
Fan Art #2: Eris is Abducted
The Current Song I’m Listening to on Repeat:
Adieu!
As I promised yesterday, today I bring you the latest silliness from iUniverse. You’re actually very lucky, because I have not one, but two bits of silliness to share with you today. Ready?
Silliness #1: Incorrect Genre Classification
This one is probably a clerical error, but it’s a very silly, uniquely iUniverse error. Imminent Danger is a YA sci-fi book. That’s not a particularly difficult genre to remember, right? And yet, the vast majority of online retailers do not have it listed as YA sci-fi. It’s either children’s lit, or fantasy, or … God, I don’t even know.
This is a direct result of iUniverse mis-reporting the genre when they initially sent out my book back in January. As I find these incorrect genres, I send iUniverse a note asking them to fix it. And they’re happy to do it … with a 6-8 week processing time for the changes to take effect. Really? 6-8 weeks? I’m fairly confident that if I had direct control over my book, I could just pop onto the Amazon site, change the genre setting, and have it resolved within ten minutes.
So silliness #1 is iUniverse failing to submit my book under the correct genre, and then taking forever and a day to fix it. Sigh.
Update March 4, 2013: I just got a call from iUniverse, asking if my genre classification issue had been resolved. I explained the situation, and the lady was very helpful. She said that she would look into the problem and make sure that all the retailers have the correct genre information. So yay to iUniverse for following through!
Silliness #2: Overpriced Author-Discounted Books
When you publish a book, you want physical copies in hand to be able to hawk to passersby. iUniverse offers authors special discounts on buying books, which is basically the list price minus your author royalties, with a higher percentage off the list price based on how many copies you buy at a time. That last sentence probably made no sense. Here’s the table I whipped up to figure out how much my hardcover books will cost, per unit, purchased from iUniverse:
I wanted about 50 hardcover to start off with. 50 hardcover, as you can see, works out to $20.77 per unit. Bear with me.
Chapters.Indigo.ca recently put out a 10% discount coupon for their site. The hardcover of Imminent Danger is listed at $23.72 — $22.53 with my member discount card. ((Note that the book cover is still not shown on this site — this will also take 6-8 weeks for iUniverse to “fix”)).
Now, I get approximately $3 per hardcover sold in royalties. So. 50 books from iUniverse at $20.77 + shipping = $1181.19. 50 books from Chapters.Indigo.ca at $22.53 (plus 10% discount), minus ~150 for royalties I’ll get back, plus free shipping, plus tax = ~$995 (give or take).
That’s about $200 in savings by ordering books from Chapters.Indigo.ca instead of the company that’s producing the darn things.
Plus there’s the weird side effect that those sales will actually count towards Imminent Danger’s sales ranking on Chapters.Indigo.ca. Not what I intended, but … I guess a higher ranking isn’t something to complain about, right?
Now, to be fair, I did contact iUniverse to see if my calculations were correct, because I couldn’t believe that such a thing would be possible. The very nice gentleman I spoke with ran through the calculations with me, and concluded that, yes, it would be cheaper to buy them from a third-party source. He offered to give me a slightly higher discount, but with the cost of shipping, Chapters.Indigo.ca still worked out as being cheaper.
Silly, iUniverse. Very silly.
The only reason I can think they wouldn’t bend over backward to convince authors to buy directly from them is if they make the same amount of money off each book regardless of where the book is bought from. That seems like a strange business plan to me — buying direct from the source should always be cheaper, shouldn’t it? And it is cheaper if, as you’ll see in the above chart, you buy 250+ books. But who has that kind of money? I certainly don’t.
In conclusion …
iUniverse continues to be delightfully silly. I’m not too miffed with them, because I don’t think the incorrectly filed genre is going to hurt me too much over the next few weeks (hopefully), and I did find a way around their bizarre pricing scheme. I’ve actually started to really enjoy seeing what silliness they come up with next.
The next step in fulfilling my contract is getting my book into a local Chapters store for 8 weeks. I’m sure there’ll be lots of silliness involved with that. Stay tuned!
Unrelated video of the day:
Get ready for the crazy.
In Japan, there is a pop star named Hatsune Miku who is entirely computer generated — voice, appearance, everything. And she’s insanely popular. Here’s the wikipedia page on her. Here’s a video of her live, in concert … despite her not actually being alive. I believe holograms are involved.
Let’s begin today’s post with a mental exercise. Re-read the title of this post, and take a wild stab at what I’m going to talk about.
Did you guess that I recently gave a newly-completed manuscript titled The Elemental Guard to my mother to read during our Caribbean cruise, and she stopped reading at page 64 because, quote, “Update: Page 64 — nothing has happened yet”, and I was utterly crushed that she didn’t like it, until she explained that the problem wasn’t the story, the problem was that the build-up to the story was so slow that she was bored to tears?
I certainly hope you didn’t guess that, because that would be mind-reading. And if mind-reading existed, it would be illegal. So stop reading my mind, or I’ll call the popo on you. (Note: “popo” is super hip urban slang for “the police”.)
Anyway, I thought I would share this latest bit of writing wisdom I’ve learned with you, because I’m just awesome like that. So, basically:
Stuff needs to actually happen in the first chapter. If you haven’t introduced the main plot by the end of the first chapter, you’re doing it wrong.
Here’s basically what happens in the current version of my first chapter. My daring and stalwart protagonist, Casey, wants to go on a rock climbing field trip, so he tries and fails to get his mother to sign his permission form. Then he goes to school, waffles around a bit with his friends, goes home, sleeps, goes to school, finds out his friend has forged his mother’s signature on the permission form, goes on the trip, climbs a cliff, and then falls off of it. What would you gather the plot is, from that?
Clearly the book, from the information I just gave you, is about a hapless boy who falls off stuff a lot. This is obviously incorrect, and wouldn’t make a terribly exciting story even if it were correct. Hence why you need to introduce the plot in the first chapter!!!
This concludes my rant. Tune in tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing the next post) for an update on iUniverse and their ongoing silliness.
Related image of the day:
Unrelated video of the day:
I used to listen to this song all the time, but it’s disappeared from the internet and is only available in HQ on one site now. So, here it is. Enjoy!
I live!!!
My Caribbean cruise getaway was a great success. There was much beach lounging and Mayan ruins visiting and buffet gorging to be had. And I got lots of writing done, which was fantastic. I also got verbally lambasted by my mother for my current WIP having such a slow start that she was bored to tears. So I guess it’s back to the drawing board on that one. Ah well. Can’t win ’em all!
I have a gazillion things to catch up on, so today’s post will be short. I just wanted to say hi to everyone, let you know I’m back, and that I’ll be digging through the last week of your blog posts just as soon as I get my life back in order.
Oh yes, and Blackbird LSD, an indie publicity company based out of California, was kind enough to host an author interview with me over on their site. Check it out here.
Here’s their logo, which is just adorable with the little birdies and whatnot:
Pictures from the vacation will be uploaded whenever my mother gets around to loading them on her computer. So … anywhere from two hours to two months. Stay tuned!
Unrelated media of the day:
There is an entire website devoted to Justin Timberlake doing things — http://justintimberlakedoingthings.tumblr.com/. And just when I thought the internet couldn’t get more awesome.
One of my personal favourites:
Michelle Proulx - Author 
