In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* I meant to make this brief
* Atticus looks good
* Topic: Want to Guest Post?
* Of Interest
Quote of the Day
“If there are only one or two things you can add to your plate this year, make designing and maintaining an online ebook store one of them.” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
I meant to make this a brief post again today, mostly because the stuff in the next couple of paragraphs seemed too important to wait for a day when I had more to say. But then I got all wordy later on and this post became more than I intended. (grin)
Anyway, those of you who subscribe to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Patreon account or even to her free newsletter probably have already seen this first part. If you have, you can probably skip this part of the Journal. If not, read on.
Back on January 26, KKR posted an extremely interesting article on New Tools for indie publishing. Admittedly, I only skimmed it, but I believe it’s free of political rhetoric. See “Business Musings: New Tools: Indie Publishing (Year in Review 7)” at https://kriswrites.com/2022/01/26/business-musings-new-tools-indie-publishing-year-in-review-7/.
To see all of KKR’s “Year in Review” posts for 2021, click https://kriswrites.com/category/business-musings/. At that link, you can scroll among the topics and brief excerpts to choose what you want to read.
Finally, if you’d like to take a look at Atticus, a book-design program KKR mentioned that rivals Vellum and is PC friendly, visit https://www.atticus.io/.
Atticus certainly looks good to me—especially because it costs $100 less than Vellum and it’s a one-time fee vs. ongoing monthly charges like Adobe—but I can’t personally vouch for it as I haven’t actually used it.
That said, I probably would adopt it myself if I weren’t so set in my ways. As it stands, I format in Word and create covers in Serif PagePlus X9 (and I have Affinity Publisher waiting in the wings). I’m also happy enough with D2D’s .mobi and .epub conversions of my .docx and cover files.
Topic: Want to Guest Post?
As I wrote above, I can’t personally vouch for Atticus as a user, but if any of you are already using it, or if you decide to try it, let me know what you think. You can even write a guest post about it if you want. In fact, if you would like to write a guest post for the Journal on any acceptable topic, email me.
Acceptable topics include any (positive or negative) about using any new writing, publishing or marketing tech. Do you have an online bookstore on your own website or anyplace other than the biggies like Amazon, Kobo, etc.? Also welcome are any posts about writing, publishing, or marketing that do not tout traditional publishing or the safety-net myths. I also welcome inspirational success stories that feature your own experience with trusting your creative mind as you write. Let others see what is possible for them through your own experience.
For example, only a day or two ago, a writer mentioned via email that she’s been writing a short story every week since April. I would welcome a post from her on anything that might help someone else do the same or something similar: where and when she writes, obstacles or deterrents to that (writing is never separate of its setting) and how she overcomes them, what motivates her to keep going, etc.
Why the Exclusions—Articles that tout traditional publishing as a good thing or that encourage writers to engage in the safety-net myths—outlining, revising, rewriting, the use of critique partners or groups, etc.—will be rejected out of hand. Readers can find articles that support the tradpubs and encourage writers to engage in these myths at 9,999 out of every 10,000 blogs on writing, so they don’t need to see them here too.
This Journal is a safe haven for serious fiction writers and aspirants who have left or want to leave those myths behind. As such, it will never endorse the nonsensical practice of using the conscious, critical mind in place of the creative mind for creative endeavors.
Also please remember your subject matter. Please don’t espouse religious, social or political agendas or systems or engage in Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump or Biden bashing. This isn’t the place.
If any of you would like to guest post, just send me an email with Guest Post in the subject line and attach your post in a Word format (.doc, .docx or .rtf). I’ll be your acquisitions editor. (grin) If I can agree with you or remain neutral, I’ll publish your post. (I reserve the right to correct spelling errors, etc.)
As this is a free blog, I can’t pay you, but feel free to include a link to your website and/or your Amazon (or other) author page, tout your stories or books, etc.
In fact, if you send me a post and there’s something of mine you’d like in return (fiction or nonfiction), include that in your email too and I’ll send it right out whether or not I accept your post for publication. Be sure to tell me which eformat you want. My default is .mobi (Kindle) but I also have .epub and .pdf. I look forward to hearing from you.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “When a Writer Dies: Making Difficult Decisions About the Work Left Behind” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/when-a-writer-dies-making-difficult-decisions-about-the-work-left-behind/. See PG’s take.
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.
I’m close to compiling and publishing a book through Atticus. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the process.
Very cool. Thanks, Phillip. Tell us about how easy or difficult it is to use, how intuitive (or not) and so on.
I looked into Atticus – and communicated with them – but found they couldn’t accommodate several features I use. I asked them to ” tell me whether, from a TEXT file, you could easily produce the kind of formatting I had to struggle with, namely right indents for quotes, and running heads that vary by chapter. And a few other widgets.”
Monique there kindly used the Look Inside on Amazon for my print edition to see for herself, and replied, “In completely honesty, no, you would not be able to get your book to look exactly the same while using Atticus. The TOC would be different, and though you can achieve features such as adding image, drop caps, different heading types, etc., even creating a custom theme would not duplicate an exact match to what you’ve already created.” She offered me a 30-day chance to try out their system.
She saved me a lot of time – I do have a ‘look’ I worked to get the way I wanted it, and will just go with that as I don’t write books very fast.
If I had a lot of books to format, as you do, I would definitely study up on how to do it faster. Or if my software cobbles stop working because of system updates. I already can’t update to the latest Mac system software.
I liked that they were responsive. I may still even try them. I prefer, as you do, a one-time payment – I tend to use things very intensely when I need them, and not do anything with the software for years in between.
Thanks, Alicia. Good to know. The speed with which I write and publish is exactly why I start with a blank document in which all the formatting is already set. The only real formatting work I have to do is to copy/paste the chapter head from one chapter to the next as I move through the book (easier than using Styles). If I were much younger, I probably would try Atticus, and if it had been out 7 years ago, I probably would have bought it, but not now.