Scrivener Public Beta for Windows

If you are looking for software to help you organize your writing efforts, Scrivener is a great choice. If you are a Mac user, you may have been using this for quite a while. If you are a Windows user, you are now lucky enough to join the club.

I am not posting a full review here because I have not downloaded the software yet, but on reputation alone, I think the Public Beta is worth a test drive. If you have feedback on the product, please post comments.

Literature and Latte - Scrivener for Windows

Until next time, keep on writing.

Free Ebook Publishing - How to Publish on Smashwords

In the last few months, I have been exploring the self-publishing options in ebook format. Over time I will probably post on each of the major distribution options, but I found an interesting centralized option that I had never heard of.

Smashwords.

First, when you publish through Smashwords, your work becomes available through the Apple iPad/iPod store, Barnes & Noble, Sony Reader Store, Kobo Store, Aldiko Store, and more. Although they do not have a direct connection to the Kindle store, they will publish your work in Kindle format where users can transfer the book to their hard drive and to the Kindle when it is plugged in via USB.

That is an incredible first step to getting your new ebook to market. This is the closest thing to one-stop ebook publishing that I have seen so far.

Second, it is FREE! No setup cost, no publishing cost, no package cost, no upload or book revision cost, and they even include a free ISBN number for your ebook.

Third, for any ebook sold through their Smashwords store, you earn 85% of the price which is the most I have seen anywhere. And for the sales that occur through the major retailers you still receive 60%.

Fourth, they have free marketing tools to help you get the word out on your ebook, which is one of the hardest parts of self-publishing in my opinion.

Fifth, if you publish two or more different author works, you can upgrade your account for free to a publisher's account to centrally manage all of your author's works, and you get your own publisher's page on their site to showcase the work as needed for new releases or circumstances like a good news cycle going along with one of your book topics.

Although I am sure I will also use some of the direct publishing through the individual ebook stores, I have a hard time finding a reason not to start with Smashwords due to the incredible return on your time investment.

Click the link to get all the details for yourself, but I'm sure you will agree this is a great ebook self-publishing option. If you find other key points that I missed, please post in the comments for others to see.

Smashwords - How to Publish on Smashwords

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

100 Free Online Tools for Writers

Thanks to the Writing Fiction blog for posting this great list of tools.
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/fiction/2010/03/web-apps-for-fiction-writers.html

yWriter5 Writing Software Review

I decided to start the year out by trying to be more organized in my writing. I have a system, but it consists of individual files for things like character summaries, plot outline, and chapter summaries. Knowing that there is software out there for writers, I decided to search and see what I could find.

After reviewing a long list of possibilities, I focused in on yWriter5. I watched the video demo and I was sold. It is feature rich, very light-weight, and FREE! And as an unpublished writer, I am a big fan of free.

I formatted my latest writing project in rtf format with chapter headings as required by yWriter5, and was able to import my whole project and have it automatically create the chapter division files.

You have options to add characters with character details, locations, items, and scenes which make up your chapters. Because of the "scene" approach, it is easy to drag scenes between chapters or rearrange them as your story fleshes out.

The reports are helpful, and you can even do a word-count report to help you stick to your writing goals.

I am really amazed at how much this free program offers, and from what I have seen so far, you are getting a top quality program.

Check it out at http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com

Preparing Plot Archs and Character Archs

One of the most satisfying plot twists in The Empire Strikes Back is the moment when Luke and Darth Vader are finishing and intense light saber battle and Vader reveals a life altering piece of information, "I am your father."

For those of us that saw this in the theater before the information was leaked, it was a powerful moment that was emotionally jarring and instantly opened up new avenues for the plot and character development. You were left wondering what would this mean? How will Luke react? Is it true?

To me this is still one of the best examples of how a writer that plans into the future is capable of bringing more to the table than one who just writes in the moment. When you go back to the first movie, you see clues like when Uncle Owen responds to a statement that Luke has too much of his father in him by saying, "That's what I'm afraid of." I remember in the theater thinking this was an obscure thing to say but after Darth Vader's revelation, it all made sense.

I wish I could say I know how to pull this off in a magical and compelling way, but as you know, I am only learning. Here are the things that do seem important to me when approaching a story which you are sure will span over several books.

1) Write Detailed Character Sheets. This helps when you only plan to write one book with the characters, but when the story will stretch on, it is critical. The more time you spend developing these characters on paper, giving them an interesting background, the more material you have to sprinkle through the books ahead.

2) Write History Overlap Sheets. Consider this an addendum to the Character Sheets. Here you will document the ways in which the various characters have crossed paths in the past, before the beginning of your first story. These interactions will provide insight to you as the writer to explain why Judy hates Steve, or Phil is tortured when he is around Judy.

3) Write a Goals Sheet for each Character. This is from the character's perspective, and can include an old set of goals and then a newer set that changed due to some events that occurred. This gives you a clear starting point for motivations of your characters. Whenever you get stuck writing a scene with that character, go back to their goals and see if it helps you find the character's next move.

4) Write an Author's Goal Sheet for each Character. This is a guideline that you may have to scrap as your plots unfold, but it can be a useful guideline. Within each story, you want a character to make some movement as a person. It may be the realization that they will never reach their goal, or it could be the fulfillment of something unexpected. Whatever it is, if you write it down and modify it as you work on your plot, it will be a helpful reference.

5) Map the Big Pieces out for the Series of Novels. I don't know how many writers actually do this, or have the time for that matter, but I can see how good initial planning will result in a richer more fulfilling plot. If you know which pieces of character background will be revealed in which book, and which major plot points will occur and when, it can allow you the freedom to fill in the blanks knowing that you have a strong overall story map for both plot and character development.

I can only hope these steps will prove true as I work on my story and characters. If you read this blog regularly, I am sure will find out if I was right or wrong about my instincts.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com

www.facebook.com/jhughthomas

Novel Setup in Lulu.com and Choosing Book Size

I am making good headway on the Novelette/Novella, and as I started thinking about overall page length it led me to thinking about the book size. So I logged into Lulu.com and started setting up my book.

Here is a quick run down of getting started in Lulu.

1) Setup an account if you don't already have one. This part is a pretty straight forward sign up process.

2) Start a new project. You can choose paperback, hardback, or a host of other formats. In my case, I choose paperback.

3) Add the title, author name, and you can set the work as private or public. When you are just getting started and playing around, just make sure it is private. Then click to Save and Continue.

4) Choose the paper type and size. You can choose Publisher grade (only ships from the US) or Standard for the paper type. The size options are too many to list here, but all the standards are available. You also pick the binding: Perfect-bound (traditional for novels), coil-bound, or saddle-stitched. You also get a neat floating calculator in the top right of the screen that shows you the cost of your book based on your selections. You also choose black and white or color, but the black and white option does include a color cover.

Play with the combination of these features to determine the best combination of size preferences and cost. I only started checking, but also consider the ISBN option you will want. If you choose the free option of publishing with a Lulu ISBN, your print sizes are more limited. If I decide to purchase my ISBN (for $99.99), I like the Digest size (5.5" x 8.5"). Due to the print size, this allows for the least amount of paper waste and therefore the best price. For a 300 page Digest book the cost is $7.00 per book. For a 300 page Pocket book (4.25" x 6.875") the cost is $10.50 per book. Obviously that means a smaller book with less words costs more money. That is why I like Digest for a first book without an established audience.

5) Upload your file. I uploaded a Word document but you can use a PDF and I think there are more options than that.

6) Design your cover. There is a great wizard for designing a simple cover. I will probably end up designing a custom cover but it is nice to have something setup in the meantime.

You can then generate a print-ready PDF to see what your book will look like in layout. I am very impressed with the ease of setting up a book in Lulu. I'll give more details as I evaluate the different parts of Lulu.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
www.facebook.com/jhughthomas

How and Why To Use Google Alerts

When you take off your writer's hat and put on the marketing hat, consider Google Alerts. They can be your best friend in both driving your marketing efforts and in showing you new avenues to explore.

One of the m0st difficult aspects of marketing is knowing how to reach people who might be interested in your content. Sure you can invest time in good search engine optimization, joining common interest groups on the Internet, and social networking with the right groups of people. In fact you should do all of these.

But how well is it working? Other than Google alerts, you should be monitoring your website/blog stats through a service like Google Analytics or Statcounter.com to see where the referring traffic is coming from.

I will start with the "how" of using Google Alerts.

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and if you have a google account, login. If you do not have a Google account, then signup here. Once you are logged in and on the alerts page, you will see a form where you can create alerts that looks like this:

In the "Search terms:" blank, just fill in the words, phrases, or an exact website URL that you want to search for. Effectively, Alerts do the same thing that happens when you go to the Google search page and type in a search. One big difference is that if you do daily or weekly alerts, it will only include NEW results since the last time. You decide if daily or weekly works better for you. Then choose the email address to deliver to and you are done. You will begin getting alerts.

Also, just as with regular web searches, make sure you qualify your search as needed. If you want to search the exact phrase Till death do us part, you must use "Till death do us part" to do an exact phrase search.

So now that you know how, why use Google alerts?

1) Google Alerts can show you who is linking to your website/blog. Why do you care? I hope you can come up with lots of reasons, but here are a few. The person who added a link to your site did you a huge favor! They are directing traffic from their site to your site. It is good Internet manners to go to their site and post a "thank you" comment and perhaps put a link to their site on your site, if it is appropriate.

You also care because the more links there are to your site, the more your site will be optimized in the search results from Google. That is just a free bonus which requires no extra effort on your part.

2) Google Alerts can show you where you should be marketing. You can setup alerts for search phrases that people might use who would be interested in your subject matter. For example, setup a daily alert for "teenage vampire fiction" if you have a YA vampire book. Then look at all the links that come to you in your email, and click on every link. If the page seems to have users that might be interested in your fiction, leave a comment on the page if you can and include a link to your website.

You just directly marketed to your target audience. If you do this on five links a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks in the year, it will result in 1,820 unique links to your site from locations on the Internet that are part of your target market!

Seems like an easy choice to me. Hope this helps propel you from Internet anonymity to cyber-stardom.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com

www.facebook.com/jhughthomas

New Google Voice

I am seriously geeking out about Google's new Voice service. I signed up to be part of the early testing period and after about an hour, I am hooked and amazed.

First of all, notice at the top of the right-hand column on my Blog homepage the new "Call Me" link with a phone icon. You can type in your name and phone number, Google Voice will call your phone, and when you answer you will be connected to my voicemail (or my phone if I had it set that way). You don't even have to dial the number!

I was able to choose a phone number in my area code and to search for a phone number with a word or series of letters that I would like to appear in my phone number. The Google Voice page does a search to see if a number with that word is available and if so, it appears on the screen. I tried "hugh" and "jhthomas" but finally I found that "thom" was available, so now I can use the phone number 205-677-THOMAS, which is really just THOM but it looks better with my whole last name. Pretty cool.

You get voice mail which can convert your received messages into text and email the text of the messages to the email address of your choosing. I tested this and it works surprisingly well. You can also make outgoing calls to anywhere in the continental US for free. That's right, FREE! You just initiate the call from the website, it calls your phone, and when you pick up it connects you to the other party with no long distance charges.

I can call my phone number from any phone to check messages, to call another phone number, check Google411, or change my settings.

I would recommend getting a Google Voice account as soon as you can even if you just use it like I plan to use it, for connecting with my blog readers, fellow writers, and future fans.

On the writing front, I have almost reached 10,000 words in my Novelette so I am getting there.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com

www.facebook.com/jhughthomas

Choosing the Best Writing Tools

Although some writers still insist that their muse will vacate the premises unless they are writing on paper, that is not the case for most of us. We typically like the "type once" approach that a device provides. Today there are more choices than ever before. Here are a few that work for me.

Quickpad - The Quickpad is a small, keyboard sized device with a small four line LCD display window. It starts up very quickly, saves quickly, and shuts down quickly. That combined with long battery life and and light weight make this a great device for writing on the go. I have found this to be perfect for writing a first draft. The four line screen is not very helpful for editing.

Smartphone - That's right, I said smartphone. I would not recommend writing a novel on a phone-size device, but it is great for blogging, social networking, and even writing articles. Take advantage of those fifteen minutes you wait for the oil change or sit in a waiting room. I use a T-Mobile Shadow and have written more than fifty of my blog posts from the phone.

Netbook - The most popular computer devices on the market are also great for writers on the go. The small form-factor, light weight, and Wi-fi connectivity make them perfect for blogging, writing articles, social networking, and writing novel length fiction. I recommend a screen ten inches or larger, less for the screen size than for the larger keyboard which allows for comfortable typing.

Laptop/Desktop PC/MAC - Most writers today use a PC/MAC as their primary writing tool. It is my top choice for serious writing and my only choice for editing. Why mess with a good thing.

Word Processing - I still prefer MS Word over most of the competition, but I have used the free OpenOffice package and it did what I expected from a word processor. Google Docs has been my recent tool of choice which is helpful if you find yourself writing from different computers or internet enabled devices.

The bottom line is you have a lot of options. Choose wisely and you may even increase your writing productivity.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_Hugh_Thomas

Podcast your novel. The new face of publishing.

Often in history, innovation causes a shift in the direction of business. The telegraph industry gave way to the telephone business. The horse and buggy were replaced by the car industry.

That's not what we are seeing in publishing.

It is a new age where people operate in a new way. In the last ten years, the ipod, audio books, podcasts, and blogs have come into their own. People consume entertainment and information in the midst of a busy day, on he fly, or on-demand. On an average day, most people read less on the written page than on the computer screen. Increasingly, people hear less on a CD than on their ipod or computer streaming.

It isn't a replacement of a previous industry, but a change in the way we operate, and therefore the way the publishing industry must operate in order to keep up.

I still think it is a valid pursuit to seek traditional publishing, and probably the best place to start. Just don't stop there. And depending on how small a market you expect, you may even want to start with the "non-traditional" approach.

You should study the pioneers of the podcast novel including J.C. Hutchins, Scott Sigler, Tee Morris, Mur Lafferty, and so many more. If you listen to interviews or personal podcasts by these individuals, you will quickly find that the podcasting route requires a lot of work... I mean a lot. But it can pay off in the end.

Check out the selection of Podiobooks that are available. You could be next on the list.

This is a good article about the brave new world of podcasting fiction.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1872381,00.html

I will probably do a more in-depth blog on the podcasting option in the future. Until then, let's all keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas

How to Write Dialogue - Part 2

Last time was more general, about the different approaches to writing dialogue. Now I'll try to talk a little about some practical techniques. To me dialogue is one of the hardest things to write, so forgive me if my advice is less than stellar. However, if you have a hard time with dialogue, my tips may help some.

1) Be the character for while - This can be very embarrassing, but it is effective. For a period of time, pretend you are one of your characters. Do it while you make dinner, sort through the mail, and talk to your family. Before they haul you off to the loony bin, you might want to tell your family what you are doing. The point here is not to play out your dialogue, but to get into the head of your characters. After you live through some casual conversation and activity of your characters, you will be much more prepared to write dialogue that sounds true.

2) Role play with your friends and family - Once again, embarrassing but effective. The key here is to hear your dialogue out loud, spoken by different people who are interacting. This method makes it easy to find dialogue that just does not work, and it can also help you improvise new dialogue that is more organic.

3) Stop worrying about squeezing in your information - This is a tricky one. Obviously when writing a novel, you are trying to get information across to the reader and stir up emotion. If you focus on the information it can cause your dialogue to sound more like a school lecture, delivering that information. Use steps 1 and 2 to drive realistic dialogue. If you don't communicate everything you want to get across, consider some narrative with thoughts and reflections. If that doesn't work, start tinkering with the dialogue, but don't allow it to become stale.

Believe me, I want to write dialogue that jumps off the page and allows the reader to believe every word was really spoken by real characters. It may take months or years to get there, but the first step is to write it down, revise it, and make it as real as you can at this point. I try not to beat myself up for not being the king of dialogue, and neither should you. Just work on your craft along with me and see your work improve with time.

That's all for now. Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas

Writing Contests for 2009

Happy New year to all, which means a whole new wave of writing contests are rolling out. This article from writers-editors.com is an excellent listing of contests, in order by the submission deadline. The deadlines range from January 15 to May 15, so you have time.

These contests cover a wide range, from poetry to a one page plot synopsis. You can start from the time you read this blog and be ready to submit by the deadline. Why not? What do you have to loose?

Here are some other listings.
Perhaps the best place to start is Writer's Digest.

Contests for best mystery, private eye, or first crime novel.

For later in the year, September, consider the three day novel writing contest.

Another list of non-fiction, flash fiction, short fiction, etc. contests.

As for my writing update, I FINISHED THE SCREENPLAY! I actually finished it late on New Year's Eve, so it was done in 2008. Thank you to Scriptologist.com for the article on screenplay formatting (which I knew nothing about) and to Microsoft for having a downloadable screenplay template for MS Word 2003. I am in the process of moving all the text into a formatted version, but the first draft of creative work is done.

Incidentally, the entire first draft of the screenplay will end up being around fifty formatted pages which according to FilmSchoolOnline.com equals about fifty minutes of screen time, a convenient 1-to-1 ratio of pages to minutes. In addition, the entire first draft was written on the small keypad of my T-Mobile Shadow phone.

After I finish moving the text into a formatted screenplay, I will be back to working on the novel with a fury. Next time, or at least soon, I plan to blog about picking up on a novel that has been set aside for a while.

Until then, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas
Facebook Account

More free website monitoring

I've been sick for the past few days so this will be a short post.  I want to thank one of my readers for commenting with more website monitoring options, two specifically.

GoStats.com is a free monitoring site similar to statcounter.com, but this one has unlimited log size where statcounter limits you to 500 log entries.  I signed up and tested it out, and found it to be a very easy setup and browsing experience.  The reports are extensive, although there are many links that don't work with the free account.  The paid version is $8/month or $90/year, but I wouldn't pay for a service like this until you are making good money on the site.

Alexa.com is a public website information company. You add a web page that they provide to your site, and they monitor your traffic. In this case, the traffic stats are available to anyone who wants to check through alexa's website. This would be useful if you are trying to get sponsors and advertising for your website once you have a decent amount of traffic. Send potential advertisers to this site and let them check your public stats for themselves.

One more thing I wanted to comment on is the new posts that recently started to see if you are a subscriber to this blog.  What I am referring to is posts with Delicious in the title.  I have setup my blog feed to include bookmarks that I add to Delicious on a daily basis.  Therefore, if you subscribe to this blog you will also get links that I find interesting through the week, but that I don't have time to specifically blog about. If you are not familiar with Delicious, I highly recommend it as a "portable favorites" list that is always available to you, no matter the PC, Mac, or web enabled device that you are browsing from.

That's all for this week. On the writing front, I finished another scene in my script. I believe I'm about six or seven scenes away from completion and then back to the book.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
MySpace Account
Facebook Account

Monitor your writing website and blogs

Last time I mentioned using feedburner.com to burn your blog, which gives you easy RSS subscription management, email subscription management, and some statistics on how people are using your blog. I want to build on that post with some more ways to monitor how your blogs and websites.

The first requirement for me is the price... FREE! Because I am not making any money doing any of this, it is important that the services are both free and useful. Here are some options to consider.

Statcounter.com is a great website for tracking standard statistics such as number of unique visitors, number of page loads, or search phrases that were used to find your blog or website. It is easy to sign up for a free account, and place a small snippet of HTML on each of the web pages you want to track. You can track the path that users take through your site grouped by user which makes it easy to find what is working well in your site and what users are not finding. Another neat feature is tracking the city/country of all your visitors. I love seeing the list of visitors to this blog from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, France, New Zealand, and dozens more. And by the way, thank you all for your continued support.

Quantcast.com is an interesting site that tracks demographic information about your visitors. I have not started using it, but I read about it in Randy Ingermanson's ezine through his website advancedfictionwriting.com. Through quantcast, you can get a visitor breakdown on gender, age group, income, and more stats that are not commonly available through site trackers.

Start simple. If you only have time to do one thing online, I recommend setup one blog, feedburn it, and setup statcounter to monitor the results. That's what I did, and it is a great learning experience. If I ever get to the point of being a published author, the idea is to have already mastered the online marketing world so I don't have to hire it all out to others.

Because if there is one thing I have learned from the experts online, as the author, you are the one that will be most responsible for marketing your book.

And for my writing update, I only finished one scene this week. I'm a self-declared slacker, but I'll make up for it.

Until next time, let's keep on writing.

www.jhughthomas.com
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas

MindMapping a Novel and Industry Insiders

I found a great blog entry on MindMapping to prepare for a novel written by Michelle. It is written in the context of preparing for the latest write a novel in one month contest, which runs for the month of November (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). The principles are sound and helpful, plus it is worth your time to look around at the rest of the Juiced On Writing blog site.

http://juicedonwriting.com/517/mindmapping-to-prepare-for-a-novel/

Also check out this blog by an assistant at a literary agency. It is a great source for inside information that might just help you get past the gatekeeper.

http://rejecter.blogspot.com/2008/10/back-and-on-how-to-write-real-good.html

Here's my weekly writing update. I've written another three scenes for the movie and refined some of the story overview. Most importantly, I'm working on it and moving forward. So until next time, let's all keep writing.

http://www.jhughthomas.com/
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas

Writing tools

I know this topic could have different meanings, but I am referring to physical tools. I have a short list based on what is working for me.

1. Laptop - just getting the obvious one out of the way. This is by far the best tool for editing, storing different drafts, storing research, and handling important correspondence. Enough said.

2. QuickPad - As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I have trouble getting bogged down in editing while writing my first draft. I did some research on how other writers dealt with this issue, and I discovered the QuickPad. It is a keyboard with a four line text window and built in memory that can handle about 100 pages. The compact, rugged case is perfect for lugging around to type a few lines here and there. Most importantly to me, the limited screen size keeps me moving forward in my writing. This is not useful for editing. I use it exclusively as a first draft machine.

3. Smart phone/PDA - if you are like me, you are juggling work, family, friends, other obligations, and writing a novel. It is no easy task to handle, but a portable device with WI-FI access can help. For example, every blog entry you read here is typed on my T-Mobile Shadow smart phone, usually during my lunch break from my car. So a blog that I don't have time to write is now accessible.

I hope that this helps you think about your options as you approach different writing tasks.

http://www.jhughthomas.com/
www.myspace.com/jhughthomas