My Mountain Lake - A Poem

Explanation

I have been writing (mostly bad) poetry since I was 21.  This is very odd considering I absolutely hate poetry.  Poetry drives me up a wall.  As a form of writing, it tends to be overly impressed with itself.  If someone wishes to say something, it's best just to come out and say it instead of tying it up in uselessly colorful words that confuse the entire situation.

So . . . now that I've gone on a rant about how much I dislike poetry . . . Let's get back to the fact that I write it. *sigh*  The fact of the matter is, poetry is a very useful tool for writers.  It's a way to get concepts, images and ideas onto paper and experiment with words.  It's also awesome for saying lovey-dovey-gushy stuff.

This specific poem is about Muncho Lake in the Colorado Rockies of Northern British Columbia. Muncho Lake  It was a sight I viewed while driving to Alaska back in 1994.  The scene is as I remember it in the morning after sleeping in my little Toyota pickup truck overnight.

From Wikipedia:
The jade green color of the lake is attributed to the presence of copper oxide leached from the bedrock underneath. Its name is derived from the Kaska language in which "muncho" translates as "big water".

Please understand that this was written before I was writing consistently.  The technical merits of the writing are . . . non-existant.  It could be written much better, but I'm not going to edit it.  I figure this will keep me from becoming too impressed with myself if I hit it big. ;)

My Mountain Lake

Snowcapped peaks

Rugged rock

Breaking the sky

Towering over land

Clouds above

Bringing moisture of life

Waiting for time

To release their gift

Beams of light

Parading down

Godly in manner

Brilliantly shining

A lake of jade

Calm little rippled

Silently lapping

Upon shores of grass

Trees climbing mountains

Douglas and spruce

Orange and red

Yellow and green

Swans passing over

On their way south

Spreading their wings

spreading their beauty

Over this I look

Gazing at this sight

Holding my breath

In wonder and awe

I am filled with amazement

At a sight of such beauty

I now leave my body

And play in this space

Over this lake I fly

Under the water I gaze

Hopping from peak to peak

I revel in life

Freedom is here

Untainted and true

Pleasure and beauty

Of the artist unknown

I look back toward my body

Basking in joy

I am at peace

With all that I am

Thank you my mountain lake

For sharing your beauty

FOr sharing your tapestry

For simply being there

I will always remember

The joy you have given

I will someday return

To see you again

Copyright 1994 John H. Carroll

Anilyia - Book 2 of the Willden Trilogy

Anilyia

In a post a couple of months ago, I talked about my first book, "Rojuun".  Here I'm going to discuss the second book, "Anilyia".

The process

Writing and publishing my first book was thrilling.  At the same time, it gave me something to live up to.  I decided right away that I was going to make it a trilogy.  It just seemed like a good size that I could sell.  I didn't want to write eighty books and still not have a conclusion.  So then I had to figure out what the next couple of books would hold.

The good news was that I had four excellent, well-developed characters.  The group relationship was developed and I could have fun with it.  One of the hardest parts was figuring out how to re-introduce the characters without boring the crap out of the reader.  I did it by narrating the details through the memory of the main character, Tathan.  I did the same for book three.  On my next trilogy, I'm trying new ways that I believe will work better.

Writing the second book was fun because I had learned so much from the first one.  I ran into two big problems.  The first was that I stopped about 60,000 words into it in order to do final edits and publish Rojuun.  Then I had to pick up from where I left off.

The second problem was the middle of the book.  I had them traveling for weeks and I did an information dump in the process.  It was clumsy and my least favorite part of the book.  Before I discourage you from reading any further, I'd like to say that the rest of the story is well worth suffering through that part. ;)  And there is some rather neat stuff in the information dump.


Phongnhakebang Caverns in Vietnam

The story

I picked up a few days after the first book.  The characters are in an inn and they need to report their findings about the race called Rojuun to Mother Tree, who sent them on the quest in the first place.  I introduced some intrigue right away that I intended to follow up on in the third book.

I still hadn't come up with a plot by the third chapter.  I decided to make fun of the "Save the world" theme that most fantasy books tend to have and brought in a character that would be over the top.  For the next few chapters I had numerous opportunities for humor.  It's one of my favorite parts of the book.  The plot developed into saving a princess, which is another cliche.  However, it's not a normal rescue by any stretch of the imagination.
After the characters visited Mother Tree, I sent them back into the caverns of the Rojuun.  Setting up a vast ecosystem underground took quite a bit of imagination and research.  I have no idea if what I wrote is possible, but I do believe it's possible.  Luminescent plants and animals that produce both light and oxygen is a really neat concept.  I can picture the scenes in my mind as though they were part of a movie.

The Rojuun become more developed as a race in this book and also much more mysterious at the same time.  There will be future series in this world where Rojuun will come into play as well.  Many readers will not be sure what to think of them after reading "Anilyia".

I will leave the question of whether the companions save the princess and what happens after the attempt for discovery within the book.  Also, I should warn you that "Anilyia" ends in a cliffhanger that will make getting book 3 "Kethril" irresistible.  Luckily that also is available in all stores.


Jessica Jorgenson, the model for the covers of the Willden Trilogy.  Photograph by Tracy Carroll



Description

Book 2 of the Willden Trilogy begins shortly after the events of book one. Tathan and his companions meet danger with a healthy dose of humor and irreverence during their adventures.

After spending time in the deep caverns fighting the terrible creatures called sstejj, the companions return to Mother Tree deep in the Willden Forest to tell her what they’ve learned. Along the way, Liselle and Vevin meet a magical being who informs them that the world will go poof if they don’t save Princess Anilyia of Mayncal, believed to be held captive by the Rojuun.

The companions start their quest to gather information; only to have their plans interrupted by a mysterious green eyed woman and her pet . . . who, oddly enough, also has green eyes.

Their journey takes them into the depths of the world. They discover the location of the princess, but the odds of rescuing her are beyond difficult and everyone is talking about humpfiggers falling from the sky. Perhaps half a plan would be better than none at all.

Will the companions be able to accomplish the mission? Do they truly understand the Rojuun? Will Vevin finally get to nom one to see if it’s tasty? What in the world will they do with the princess if they do save her?

The Willden Trilogy is an epic fantasy that follows the adventures of Tathan and his companions through the Willden Forest and into the depths of the world. A new race called Rojuun has appeared in the world and is threatening to make humans their servants. It is the companions’ task to learn more and perhaps rescue a princess if they have the time.

This is a full length novel of approximately 103,000 words, or about 400-450 printed pages

The price of Anilyia is $2.99

Smashwords

Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France

Apple
B&N

Sony

Kobo

Diesel

How to find your books on international Apple iTunes, iBooks stores

iTunes bookstore, or iBooks as many call it.

As many authors know, or don't know, or guess, or deduce, or think, or figure, or remain oblivious to, or . . . I'm getting out of hand, aren't I? . . . Apple's iBookstore is available in lots of countries.  Smashwords distributes eBooks to Apple as well as to other bookstores.  They do it efficiently and also have the option free isbn numbers for writers, a requirement for publishing with Apple.

It's a little difficult to find your books on iTunes, but not impossible.  Smashwords has this information in their FAQs: http://www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#findonapple

How to Locate your Smashwords Ebook in the Apple Store:

Take a look at this (study the URL before you click):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781452300030

                country code ^                      ^ISBN ^ 

On Smashwords, find your ISBN by clicking your Dashboard's ISBN Manager.

Note: be sure to take the dashes out of your isbn when you paste it. 

They also promote Russell Phillips' Tools for Authors: http://www.russellphillipsbooks.co.uk/pages/tools.php which has a tool to create the links for Apple.

Now you've found your book.

Here is what my first book, "Rojuun" looks like.  Once you enter the above info, the URL is adjusted to add the name of your book.:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/rojuun/id409277486 

Also, you should now have an author page, which can be found by clicking on "View More By This Author" in the upper right hand corner.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/john-h.-carroll/id409277487

If you look at the numbers in the links above for my first book and my author page, you may notice that the author number is one greater than the first book.  I've done some research and it appears to be that way for all Smashword authors.

Finding your books internationally

Okay, in the links above, you may have noticed that they all have /us/ in the link right after .com.  That is the country code.  I know for certain of 32 countries in which Smashwords distributed books are available.  You can read the recent Smashwords anouncement where Apple added 26 European and Scandinavian countries here: Smashwords Blog

If you would like to be able to see your author page or book in each country, simply replace /us/ in your link with the country code listed below.

US                                 us

Canada                          ca

U.K.                              uk

Germany                        de

France                            fr

Australia                        au

Austria                           at
Belgium                         be
Bulgaria                         bg
Cyprus                          cy
Czech Republic             cz
Denmark                       dk
Estonia                          ee
Finland                          fi
Greece                          gr
Hungary                        hu
Ireland                          ie
Italy                              it
Latvia                           lv
Lithuania                       lt
Luxembourg                 lu
Malta                           mt
Netherlands                 nl
Norway                       no
Poland                         pl
Portugal                       pt
Romania                      ro
Slovakia                      sk
Slovenia                      si
Spain                          es
Sweden                      se
Switzerland                 ch

I found the data on the country codes here: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/codes/country.htm It seems like a very useful page to anyone who might need info like that.

Anyway, I hope this helps all you authors who have books distributed through Apple.  This is another useful tool that I'm creating largely for my own benefit, but also for other authors.

All my best and happy writing. :)

John

Steps for an Indie Author to market eBooks

Introduction

As you may or may not know, I am an Indie Author, which is a cool way of saying that I write books, then edit them, make the covers, publish them to numerous eBook sites, and then try to get people to buy them through marketing and social networking.  If you know me personally, then you are aware that I almost never talk, so this whole social networking thing is really not my forte.  There are other Indie Authors out there that are much better than I am at this.

Note:  This is not all of the places or ways of marketing for an Indie Author.  I'm just listing what I do.

I'd really love to just spend all my time writing books and letting others do the everything else for me, but it doesn't work that way for Indie Authors.  I could try to become professionally published, but I'm a little too odd to be accepted and the pay just isn't good enough.

I'm making this post largely for myself so that I remember all of the steps I need to take each time I publish.  I'm starting to lose track.  But I'm also making it to help other Indies out there. :)  Part of my problem is that I don't always do all of this.  In addition to writing, I have a full time job and a family that I pay attention too.  Marketing isn't as much fun as writing.

My worst problem is that I can't stand being pushy, so I usually only mention my books every once in a while and then hope that people find me because they like them well enough to read them.  Speaking of pushy, I'm going to make the links to examples of my works where possible, partly so you can see an example of how to do it, and partly because I know you want to see my awesome stuff. :D

The first thing I do is publish to Smashwords, Amazon and B&N.

Another important step is to have images of my covers for all the sites that need it.  I have folders on my computer, but some sites like an online link.  I use photobucket:  http://s1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee436/kookoo88/  I also have my covers in three sizes.  My higher resolution covers are 1100x1500.  Then I have a 220x300 resolution that I use for forums, especially Mobileread which doesn't allow larger.  And a thumbnail size 80x109.  They don't have to be exactly that size, it's just what I use.  I also post my covers on Deviant Art: http://johnhcarroll.deviantart.com/gallery/

Steps I take when marketing

The Smashwords version is generally available immediately, so I promote that first.

1. Go to the Smashwords page and twit about it. (yes, I know, most people say tweet) http://twitter.com/#!/kookoo88
2. If you're an Indie Author, facebook fan pages are a useful tool.  I post the link to my fan page next. http://www.facebook.com/John.H.Carroll.Author
3. I'm not on reddit, stumble upon, or a bunch of others, but if you are, it's a good choice.
4. Put your books up on Goodreads. Create an author page if you haven't already. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4479427.John_H_Carroll This is a very important place to have a presence.  It's advisable to join groups and engage in conversations. Do NOT self-promote in general conversations and forum threads.  Only promote where you're allowed and don't be spammy.  People don't like it you're only there to sell them something.
5. I post my book on Indie Book Lounge: http://www.indiebooklounge.com/
6. I post my book on Book Junkies Library. http://www.book-junkies-library.com/
7. I post my book with Calibre, but only if it doesn't have DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I never add that if it's an option. http://drmfree.calibre-ebook.com/by/author/john-h-carroll  The best way to get a hold of them is to post your book info, author name and link on their facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/#!/calibre.ebook  Be sure to add genres and price as well. They like to know if it's a novel, novella or short story.
8. I post my book on Book Barista. http://www.bookbarista.com/
9.  Once you get your book published through Amazon, update its details on Shelfari. http://www.shelfari.com/johnhcarroll
10. It's a good idea to set up a page on Library Thing http://www.librarything.com/home/JohnHCarroll it's a little complicated and I don't have everything set up there, but . . .
11. Did I mention blogging about it?  Yeah.  I'm way behind on blogging about my books.  *sigh*  As far as that site goes . . . well . . . you're kinda here.
12. Explore different review sites and submit your book for review.  Be certain to follow their guidelines.
12-a. Important note.  Do your best to write a good book that's also technically well written.  If your book sucks, it will receive a bad review.

If you wish to pay for advertising, two reputable sites are Pixel of Ink and Ereader News Today, the latter of which leans more toward romance books. 

Promoting in forums

Two of the biggest are Kindleboards http://www.kindleboards.com/ and Mobileread http://www.mobileread.com/.  They each have an author self promotion forum to post in.  I use the 220x300 resolution cover link on them.  One of the keys here is not to post in any other forums than the ones specified. The moderators are very draconian about their rules  Another key is to engage in general conversation on other threads in their forums.  Do NOT self promote in them.

One thing with Mobilereads is to introduce yourself in the introduction forum before going elsewhere. Also, you don't get a signature for the first week and you have to have 10 posts if I recall correctly.

There are many, many other forums out there.  One trick is to find forums specifically geared toward your genre, such as romance, sci-fi or horror forums.  This is a lot of work and I'm going to be honest in that I don't do it near enough.  I have limited time and I usually end up writing instead.

Once your books go live on Amazon and B&N, you can bump the Kindleboard, Mobileread and any other forum posts where you've posted your book.  You can do it again when Smashwords distributes to Apple, Kobo, Sony, Diesel and any others.  Also, if you get a review, you can post that . . . although, I'd keep quite about any 1 star reviews. ;)

If I'm giving the eBook away for free, I can promote in more places.

1. getfreeebooks.com is the single best site to list your free eBooks. http://www.getfreeebooks.com/  I get hundreds of downloads every time they post my books
1-a. Once you have a book there, you can create a very nice author page: http://authors.getfreeebooks.com/2011/08/john-h-carroll/
2. Ereader News Today will generally post your free eBooks on their site, which brings in quite a few readers.  Their fans tend to be Kindle customers, so it's best to have the story go free on Amazon first.

Where I don't promote.

1. I'm in a few facebook groups, like Book Junkies, Indie Author Group and Indie Writers Unite.  I like these groups and they're a nice place to talk.  I could promote to them a little bit, but they see a lot of that anyway and I really prefer to go there just for the conversations. :)
2. Forums where it's not allowed.  You will make readers hostile towards you.
3. Don't get hyper about asking everybody about reviews.  Put a note that you'd like reviews at the end of the story and let it go.  If you have twenty solicited 5 star reviews, real readers aren't going to believe them and may start voting harshly to correct the discrepancy.

Final Notes

Readers buy books from authors they know before they'll buy from anyone else.  The key is for an Indie author to get readers to know them.  My main strategy for this is to give away short stories for free and to market as much as I can stand before going back to writing the next novel.

It is a truth that one of the most important thing any writer can do is to constantly improve their craft and put out a higher quality product each time.  This is the best marketing of all.