Camp NaNo — aka the 50K Marathon

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Michelle Proulx


If you’re a writer, you’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you write a 50,000 word book in one month along with a whole whackload of other people crazy enough to attempt the challenge. You update your word count each day, inching closer and closer to that seemingly unattainable goal. Finally, you reach the summit! 50,000 words! That’s an entire book! Or the first half of an entire book! Or the first eighth, if you’re George RR Martin or Stephen King! Your prize? 50,000 words of a book, plus a fancy certificate that you print and fill out yourself. NaNoWriMo rocks.

So what is Camp NaNo?

Camp NaNo is NaNoWriMo, but in the summer. You pick a month to do the challenge – either June or August this year (or both!) – sign up, and wait for June 1/August 1 to arrive. Then the fun starts. And by fun, I mean jaw-grinding stress and an increased reliance on expensive coffee shop beverages to retain even a semblance of functionality.

What else is different between NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNo?

Camp NaNo has a feature called Cabins, where they will match you up into “cabins” with other writers – sort of forcing you into a social support system. You can choose your cabin mates, they can be randomly assigned, or you can ask to be placed by age or genre. Not being in a cabin is also an option.

Have you ever done Camp NaNo, Michelle Proulx Official?

Just Michelle is fine. Shelli works too, if you’re feeling whimsical. And yes, I attempted it last year. I failed miserably, but that’s beside the point.

Then what is the point?

The point is that Camp NaNo is an awesome way to write a book, or at least get started on one. I’m not going to lie – cranking out 1667 words a day (50k/30) is really hard, especially when you know that what you’re writing is probably crap. You want to go back and change it, but you know that you can’t or else you’ll fall behind. That’s actually one of my favourite parts of NaNo – the fact that you can’t look back. It forces you to figure out new and inventive ways to deal with the situations you foolishly got your characters into.

So all NaNo books are terrible?

Of course not. I mean, yes, the first drafts are generally mediocre at best. But the point is that you’re writing. I, for example, have three different novel ideas floating around in my head right now that have yet to see the light of the monitor. Would you like to hear them?

Not really.

Fine. Anyway, left to my own devices, I might get around to writing one of these novels in a year or two. You know, once I get my current novel sorted out and published, and fix up the sequel, and finish the Hunger Games-esque story I’m halfway through writing, and get a real job, and move out of my mother’s apartment, etc.

I begin to comprehend.

Exactly. NaNo forces you to drop everything and spend an entire month creating something completely from scratch. This requires putting certain projects on the back burner, but I feel that it is usually worth it.

There’d better be some sort of success story in here…

I’ve “won” NaNo four times. The first book was terrible. It was a basic high school soap opera, until the lead male’s father was revealed as an evil Russian arms trader. When I stopped writing, the high school protagonists were about to fly off in an illegally purloined jet to take down the Chinese terrorist group “Red Fist”, who had acquired fifty nuclear bombs and were planning to drop them on the USA, one bomb for each state. Several of the characters also possessed hacking abilities roughly on par with Dade Murphy from Hackers.

That sounds mind-crushingly horrendous.

It was. The second attempt, in a complete reversal of events, was awesome. Six years later, it has become Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It, the novel I am currently self-publishing. The third attempt has also turned into a finished book, although it needs major tweaking. The fourth had a cool premise, but didn’t hold up under scrutiny, so I’m in the process of re-imagining it.

So… what exactly is the point of this post?

I’m trying to explain to people that Camp NaNo is awesome, and that they should check out the Camp NaNo site and give it a try. Apparently I didn’t make that clear.

I know mud that is clearer than you.

Oooh, burn. So how about it, bloggers? Anyone doing Camp NaNo this summer? Anyone done NaNoWriMo in the past? I’m still on the fence about doing the June camp (only three days away!), so your opinions are greatly appreciated.

Peace out, bro.

You are not nearly cool enough to pull that phrase off.

Okay. How about: Peace out, A-bro-ham Lincoln?

Very historical. I approve.

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Visual Writing Prompt + SpaceX

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Picture It And Write!

M. Selene mentioned this very cool writing prompt thought up by Ermilia – check her blog out here. Basically, she posts a picture, and then you write a short paragraph of fiction about it and share it. I remember my grade 8 teacher used to make us do activities like this. I hated it back then, because I was in the eighth grade so what did I know, but now I’m psyched. Here is the image, and my contribution:

It was the first sign of civilization they had seen in days – a weather-beaten, clapboard house on a rough little island connected to the shore by a rickety bridge. As if they needed extra incentive, the clouds were catching up again. Within minutes they would cover the entire sky, and Darcy knew what would happen when the last gleam of blue was swallowed up. She refused to let that happen.

Grabbing Mikey’s hand, Darcy dragged her brother off the path and onto the splintery walkway. “It looks like it could fall down any second,” Mikey protested, digging his heels against the wooden boards.

Darcy continued resolutely across the bridge, trying to ignore the way it creaked ominously at each footfall. “It’s better than being caught out here when the clouds come,” she snapped.

Overhead, the skies had grown darker. The deceptively pleasant white clouds were now deepening to navy, and would soon be a roiling black. Only a sliver of blue peeked out from the distant edge of the horizon. It had happened faster than she expected. “Run!” Darcy screamed. This time Mikey cooperated, and together the children raced across the rest of the bridge and down the curving path towards the house.

Then Mikey tripped, not five meters from the partially-ajar door. Darcy, holding his hand, was dragged down with him. The stumble was a critical error. By the time the children had made it back to their feet, the skies had turned completely black. They made a desperate dash for the house, but the door slammed shut in their faces. Then the wind started to swirl around them, and the dark clouds crackled with malevolent energy.

They were too slow. It was coming.

 SpaceX Update!

Ladies and gentlemen, the first commercial spacecraft – aka SpaceX’s “Dragon” ship – has officially docked with the International Space Station! The Canadarm was used to dock the ship, and now the ISS astronauts are floating into the Dragon capsule to claim their 1,000 pounds of provisions stored inside. According to astronaut Donald Petti, it smells like a brand new car. I wonder if they stuck in one of those pine tree air fresheners?

How awesome is the name “Dragon”? SpaceX apparently has a rule when naming things:

“They are named independently, the rule is names must be cool.”

What really fascinates me about SpaceX is the man who runs it – Elon Musk. He financed a huge part of the project with money acquired from his roll as co-creator of PayPal. He also started Tesla Motors, which is an electric car company. Spaceships, electric cars… I want to nominate this guy for president, or something. He’s the kind of person I want running the world. Focused on improving technology, making the world a better place – not starting wars, or selling junk food, or whatever multinational corporations spend all their money on these days.

Thinking time!

Say I gave you a billion dollars. What would you do with it?

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

2012 Contests for Self-Published Authors

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

I’ve recently been doing research into contests for self-published authors, and I now share them here with you! Obviously I can’t enter any of them, as my book is still in the editing stage, but hopefully someone out there will find these links helpful.

Click the title of the contest to go to their website. They are listed in order of entry deadline.

Disclaimer: Scam contests have been known to operate. These links are for reference only. If you decide to enter one of these contests, double-check that they are legitimate before sending your money!

2012 New York Book Festival

  • Deadline: June 1, 2012
  • Prize: $1,500, flight to New York for the awards ceremony
  • Cost: $50 per entry
  • Categories: all genres

Writer’s Digest 20th Annual Self-Published Book Awards

  • Deadline: June 15, 2012
  • Prize: $3,000, national exposure, paid trip to Writer’s Digest Conference
  • Cost: $100 for first entry, $75 for additional entries
  • Categories: all genres

Hollywood Book Festival

  • Deadline: June 25, 2012
  • Prize: $1,500, flight to LA for the awards ceremony
  • Cost: $75 per entry
  • Categories: all genres

Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards

  • Deadline: August 31, 2012
  • Prize: site is unclear – potentially national exposure
  • Cost: $75-$95 per entry
  • Categories: children’s literature

2012 Anderbo Self-Published Book Award

  • Deadline: October 15, 2012
  • Prize: $500, announcement and publication of book excerpt on Anderbo website
  • Cost: $20 per entry (“reading fee”)
  • Categories: fiction or non-fiction

Happy writing/entering! Also, let me know if you do enter, so I can wish you good luck!

Funny and relative comic: click here.

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shelf Space for your Self-Published Book + SpaceX

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Publishing an eBook is awesome, no doubt about it. But for me, the ultimate goal of a self-published author is getting your book onto a bookshelf in an actual brick and mortar book store. Imagine walking into your favourite book store and watching as a complete stranger picks your book off the shelf. Heaven!

I’d love to just walk into my local Chapters (Canadian book store) and ask the manager to put my books on their shelves, but tragically it’s more complicated than that. Big book stores don’t want to deal with random little indie authors – they have international best sellers to push. So where can we get our shelf space fix?

Good news for Wichita, Denver, Louisville, and Chico!

First of all, check out this article. Basically, there are a handful of indie book stores in the USA that have started programs that enable local self-published authors to sell their books in the stores. These stores operate mainly on “consignment” – meaning that you give the book store copies of your book for free, and if the books sell, the book store pays you back an agreed-upon price. So, if I were to bring in my made-up-on-the-spot book, Tuna on a Cloudy Day, that retails at $20, the book store would give me a set consignment rate (let’s say 50/50). My book would then go on the shelf for a limited time, and whenever a book is sold, I would get $10.

Some of the book stores listed in the article also have programs where you can do book signings, or they will help you create promotional materials for your book campaign, etc. My personal favourite is Lyon Books in Chico, California, which holds an annual Local Author Holiday Open House. They run ads in the newspaper featuring thumbnails of the local authors’ books and short blurbs, then get all the local authors together in the store for a huge book-signing event. How amazing does that sound?

Unfortunately, I don’t live in Wichita, Denver, Louisville, or Chico. This somewhat limits my options. I’ve tried the obvious Google search for book stores near my house that offer such a program for local authors, but all I got was an eHow article on How to Get a Self-Published Book Into Bookstores. Not very helpful, internet.

My “solution”, such as it is.

There is a self-publishing company called iUniverse. I signed with them and sent them a boatload of money back in April. Now, I don’t want to recommend them to anyone just yet, because I haven’t even gotten as far as the submitting my manuscript stage. More updates on that as the publishing process progresses. Anyway, they have this really neat program called the Indigo Chapters Publishing Package that is only available in Canada. It’s your basic self-publishing service – they edit your book, design the cover, format the interior, create print and eBook versions, and distribute them on all the major book-selling sites. However, there is the added bonus that they will put 8 copies of your book into a Chapters book store of your choice for 8 weeks. The best part is that, if the books sell, Chapters is obligated to re-stock the book so long as the 8 week period is in effect. This means that if you can generate enough interest in your book, Chapters will keep re-ordering even past the end of the 8 week period. Exciting stuff! I’ll let you know if it works XD

Know any good indie book stores?

Obviously my “solution” only works if you live in Canada and have $2,999 to spare. Okay, I didn’t exactly have it to “spare”, but you get the point. Does anyone know of any local/indie book stores that offer programs like the ones I mentioned for self-published authors? It doesn’t have to be only for Canada – I’d love to know about any/all of them!

Also, does anyone know anything or have tips about getting your book into a physical book store? I’m sure at least one person in the big, wide world of WordPress has accomplished this feat!

And now for a change of pace – SpaceX!

Not technically on the topic of writing, but still noteworthy – SpaceX has successfully launched their first commercial spaceship. It’s unmanned, and is currently in orbit around Earth and preparing to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). Read about it here. Why am I so excited about this? Because NASA shut down the spaceshuttle program, and have been relying on Russian rockets (not the most reliable form of transportation) to get up to the ISS. SpaceX is the first private company in the world to launch their own rocket successfully. And they aren’t the only company doing it, either. I envision a future (hopefully within the next few decades), where space tourism will be a real thing. How awesome would it be to go up into space for a few hours and float around in zero G? If SpaceX succeeds, this could very well happen, hence my enthusiasm.

And for those of you who don’t want to read the article, here is my personal favourite tidbit from the very bottom:

“The rocket also blasted into orbit around the Earth the ashes of more than 300 people, including Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek. The ashes were in a section of the rocket that was jettisoned during the climb into space.”

That’s right, you can now send your ashes up into space to orbit the Earth for eternity, in the company of astronauts and Star Trek actors. Anyone else intrigued by this concept?

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

eBook Pricing – A Conundrum

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Michelle Proulx
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How much is a good story worth?

If you’ve been following recent news, you’ll know that several major publishing houses (Harper Collins, Apple, etc.) are being hit with an anti-trust lawsuit regarding their attempts at fixing eBook prices. See here for an explanation of the issue. The problem is that self-published authors are selling their books at $2.99 or less, and publishing houses feel that this is devaluing eBooks. They are worried that people will stop buying their higher-priced, best-selling novels in favour of mass-consuming the self-published books that are flooding the market. The obvious solution would be for publishing houses to simply price their eBooks lower in order to compete with self-published authors… but it isn’t as easy as that.

I had always believed that eBooks were overpriced – it costs nothing to produce an electronic file, after all, so why should I pay $14.99 for it? But then I read this article. When you print thousands and thousands of books, the cost of printing only amounts to a few dollars a copy. That’s why you can find $5 books on the discount shelf at your local book store, because they really don’t cost that much to actually print. So why are books priced so high? Because of all the overhead costs the publisher must pay – author advances, marketing fees, etc. All these things still have to be paid for, whether you’re making a print book or an eBook. The only difference with an eBook is that you’re saving those few dollars that would have been used for printing. So in that respect, eBooks could logically be priced almost as high as print books. And most of them are fairly costly – usually half the cost of the print book’s list price.

But then you get the difference between owning a pdf file, and having in your hands a real, heavy, paper-cut-inducing book. Yes, eBooks offer the advantage of being able to carry around your entire library in your back pocket. But if I had $15, I would rather spend it on a real book. I’m proud of my book shelf, and I love being able to just plop down in front of it and peruse the book spines for my next read. Not to mention that I like to share my books with my friends, but I don’t think I’d want to share my eBook reader.

At the same time, eBooks are growing in popularity, and publishers do need to turn a profit. If they only charge $2.99 for their eBooks, I imagine the profit margin must be nearly non-existent for the author. Apparently some authors are actually walking away from book contracts because publishers refuse to let them retain their e-rights to their books, because they’ve realized that it’s far more profitable to sell eBooks on their own terms. Amazon Kindle, for example, offers a 70% royalty rate if you price your eBook between $2.99 and $9.99. Who wouldn’t want that?

But then with self-publishing, you get eBooks priced as low as 99 cents. Initially I thought that this was a fantastic idea, because if you are trying to build up a readership, what better way to get people to buy your book than by selling it for less than a dollar? A single cookie costs more than that, especially if you get one of those delicious gourmet ones. But then I remembered a book sale I went to a few years back, where I bought maybe fifty books for about $50. If the cover even mildly intrigued me, I bought it. But how many of those books have I read since then? Maybe a quarter, if that. Maybe eBooks need to be priced a little higher – say, $2.99 – in order to make it worth the reader’s while to actually open up the file. It’s hard to discover new authors if you never read the books that they write.

What do you think? What’s a good price for a self-published author’s first book? I’ve been leaning toward $2.99 – a bit more than 99 cents, but still less than a Starbucks latte. Would you pay $2.99 for a story from an author you’ve never read?

Funny and relevant comic — click here!

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , | 12 Comments

Greetings, Earthlings.

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Welcome to my blog. For a long-winded explanation of what you’ll find here, check out the FAQ. If you’d rather not slog through several pages of increasingly-ridiculous dialogue, keep reading.

So six years ago, I wrote a book. It’s about alien abduction, romance, flashy laser gun battles, aliens with a shaky understanding of logic and morality, and a high school girl named Eris trying to find her way back home to Earth. After innumerable edits and revisions, Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It is finally ready for publication. Since traditional publishing houses are wary of first-time authors, I’ve elected to go the self-publishing route via iUniverse. This means I have to pay them money, instead of them paying me, but that’s the price you pay for self-publication.

This blog is about that book. Well, currently. If people like the book, and buy the book, then I’ll hopefully make enough money to afford publishing a sequel. And then another sequel. And so on. Maybe start a different series entirely. But right now, the focus is on Imminent Danger.

It isn’t published yet, so you can’t buy it right now. But it should be ready to go by the end of Summer 2012. Check back here every few weeks to learn of any new developments. And if you’re an author looking to self-publish, I’ll be describing each step of the self-publication process as it happens to me, so stay tuned.

Talking to people is awesome. As such, you should definitely talk to me. Leave comments, email me, facebook me, anything you want. Honestly, it doesn’t even have to be related to the blog. Read a good book lately? Tell me about it! Heard a hilarious, slightly inappropriate joke? I’m all ears (not literally – that would be strange). I have a Facebook page for the book that you can also check out. If you really want to get in touch with me, I suppose that stalking me down and slipping creepy letters under my door is also an option, but I’d prefer that you take the electronic route if at all possible.

I’m new to all this, so if you think of ways to improve the blog – polls, book excerpts, contests, videos, whatever – please let me know. Oh, and for people new to WordPress.com, there’s some sort of Subscribe button you can press that will let the site email you whenever I write a new post. I promise I’ll keep them to two or less a week so that I don’t spam your inbox.

I look forward to meeting you!!!

Categories: Blog-related, My Works, Random, Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , | 10 Comments

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