A certain something I'd like to share

[Squiggy]

This is a book.
My own book.
It's 148 pages, has a hard cover and it makes me feel like a kid who just got the 'red car' for christmas; warm and fuzzy.

Yaaaaaaaay!
I love you all!
Life is awesome!
Thanks for reading, have a nice day! \ö/

 

[Nuclear]

Congratulations.

I can't say anything about the quality since I've not read it. But if you think it's any good, you absolutely have to publish it as ebook:

https://kdp.amazon.com/

It's free and Amazon will promote your book to people who have read similar stuff. (so use good keywords as tags)

After you've published it, set up a promotion and offer it for free for some time, this will get you downloads and hopefully good ratings.

I'm of course speaking from experience. I once published a 11 page absolutely dreadful book, put it up for free and 100 people downloaded it within few days (and left hate comments). And it looks like you have put some effort, so imagine what you could achieve.

After the free promotion ends, the recommended price is 2.99 dollars. That way many people will buy it without thinking too much, and they're less likely to regret it. But if it's less than 3 dollars, you will get a lesser percentage of the profit, so that's the minimum.

If you're going to do this, feel free to ask anything about it. I researched the topic quite a bit some time ago, but didn't unfortunately produce anything worth publishing.

 

[Chaosy]

Nothing to say but congratulations!

I never knew we had authors around here

 

[Squiggy]

The publisher I used also offers to distribute and publish works if wanted.
I, unfortunately am not going to do this as said book has huge, private chunks of my life to it which I'd rather not share with the world :/

And even if not, I'd have to lure someone into QCing it for me. Firstly, because I'm German and it's in English and secondly because I may have made small mistakes concerning wording etc.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Congratulations! I'm currently in the process of writing and attempting to publish some of my own work as well, so I can relate to some of the struggles involved in writing. It looks like this was a deeply personal project, so I'm sure there were many parts of it that were outside the norm as far as typical writing processes go.

What prompted you to write it? I'm assuming it was related to what you spoke about in your other thread, Love Across Dimensions?

 

[Squiggy]

You nailed it.
I started writing random texts in late 2010.
Said texts changed into a consistent story over time - say, a visual reflection of what had happened since the beginning.
I had numerous breaks from it, longest being almost two years after I got my first issue printed (until page 76).
Finally, I pulled off the last 50 pages within six weeks.
A lot was changing at that time.
What I can share is that the story revolves around that very different kind of relationship so yes, I guess you can say that it's personal.

If it matters to you: go on writing. It's awesome; holding your own story in your own hands.

 

[Celaquil]

Whoa, damn nice

May I ask; What publisher is that?

Also:

And even if not, I'd have to lure someone into QCing it for me. Firstly, because I'm German and it's in English and secondly because I may have made small mistakes concerning wording etc.

I'm facing some of the same trouble, I want to become an author, but I'm Norwegian
and I don't like writing in my native language. So I must ask: What do you mean by
"QCing"?

 

[Deathcom3s]

QC probably refers to Quality Control. Most likely referring to the process of getting beta readers, proof-readers, editing, etc.

 

[invalidnick]

Congratulations!

 

[Squiggy]

Thanks for the wishings, gentlemen.

Whoa, damn nice

May I ask; What publisher is that?

Also:



I'm facing some of the same trouble, I want to become an author, but I'm Norwegian
and I don't like writing in my native language. So I must ask: What do you mean by
"QCing"?

The publisher's called 'epubli'.
They're from Berlin and their pricing list is reasonable.
I, eg. paid 11.63€ for the book and 3€ for shipping.

QC probably refers to Quality Control. Most likely referring to the process of getting beta readers, proof-readers, editing, etc.

 

[Idaero Ace]

It's Diary of Wimpy Kid! Is that something like diary?

 

[Squiggy]

It's Diary of Wimpy Kid! Is that something like diary?

You're not implying that I'm a wimp, are you?
No, you surely aren't.
Are you one of them, by any chance?

Anyways, it's not a diary to be exact, but a semiautobiography - as stated before.

 

[Zombie]

Congratulations! I love semi-autobiographies written by german people, one changed the whole world! Are you sure you don't want to publish it?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Congratulations on your first book!

GC'ing would be helpful indeed. Judging from the cover and the contents table, it looks... I don't know ... gaudy, tawdry? I don't know what vocabulary to use here.


Just to give a suggestion from "outside" (and if you are open to criticism):

Be careful to stay away from using too many clichés if you intend to publish one of your works some day (or want to be a writer in general).
"Rainy day and sunshine at the horizon"; "The road towards a distant horizon"; "Sunbeams through the shutter"; "A million stars from below" all sound extremely over-the-top and like a cheap novelett. You know, that kind of book a depressed mother in her mid-life crisis would read.

 

[Squiggy]

Ironically, the titles reflect the actions inside the chapters.
The first one, eg. IS about a rainy day and said sunshine, A Million stars was my word of choice as that chapter deals with a flight during nighttime.
I can see what you're implying on but then again, I indeed did write those chapters in a state of what you'd call a depression and so.. yea

As for the TOC itself, I know... it's far from perfect.
The inital cover was way worse and the final cover's going to be way better.
If you want to, feel free to point out which exact points made you think it's tawdy.
The simple shade?
I'll do a formatting revamp to the whole thing anyways whenever I'm done proofreading it myself once more with the corrections I did to the initial version.
It may even brush a pagecount of 170 or so~

 

[Zwiebelchen]

It's the combination of cover picture, text font and text content that makes it look tawdry. It just screams "just another depressive japan nerd" all over the place... and, you know, nothing wrong with that if that's what you are aiming for.
But chances are it's not.

If you are going to try your fortune as a real author (again, only if) some day, it doesn't help if you want to be taken seriously by any publisher. They say you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover ... but this is exactly what people do. And if you want to be successful, better try to build up a different 'image' for your presentation. Otherwise you will be immediately put into a drawer you don't want to belong to.

 

[Nuclear]

Clearly OP is not trying to professionally publish this. If he were, he wouldn't need to try to impress some old executive, he could just put it on Amazon (you don't even have to use a real name).

 

[Orcnet]

You are amazing Squiggy! damn I never had the guts of making a book with passion and fun of enjoying it. The only book I remembered making was a coverage study about sales and technology during my college life, and hell I had the most horrible/painful feeling after finishing it.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Clearly OP is not trying to professionally publish this. If he were, he wouldn't need to try to impress some old executive, he could just put it on Amazon (you don't even have to use a real name).

He said that he didn't want to publish it anyway. But there's no reason not to give criticism for future endeavours. Unless the TO doesn't want any. But then this is up to him.

 

[Squiggy]

Oh don't worry, I've taken your advice to my heart.
After proofreading it and eliminating a bunch of minor errors, such as double "" and the likes, I decided to completely reformat it using a smaller font size, block text and suddenly, it's 155 pages.
Chances that I'm really going to rework the cover are low, to be honest since I wanted it to look like that.
What I am going to do to it is lowering the title a tad further because it's too close to the top border as of now.

And thanks again for the varying input from you people.
Be it criticism or wishings, both of them are of equal value to me

 

[SA Dashie]

Do want.

Anyway, it must feel awesome to have published your own fully fledged book with some personal experiences added to it.

If only I enjoyed writing... Or reading books at that.. :/

 

[Squiggy]

And finally it's done.
To Zwiebelchen's demise, I've kept the cover as-is aside from lowering the text a bit and decreasing the transparency of the border a little.
I reformatted the whole thing; lower font size, corrected a ton of errors and made it an actual block text.
It looks so much better now <3

The pictures show:
1.) the latest version
2.) covers from above
3.) thickness between 76 and 148 pages hardcover
4.) the inside formatting v2<->v3

Excuse the noise and shit lighting - it's kinda evening over here.

 

[Rui]

Hold on a second, I didn't get it, the book isn't for sale is it?

(...)
If it matters to you: go on writing. It's awesome; holding your own story in your own hands.

I tend to be a perfectionist, so I doubt I'd ever feel satisfied =P


Did anyone else notice that the gal with the basket ball looks like me?