Ok, so there are no-doubt millions of new websites in town, but this one is different. It’s called BookTesters.com, and I may have had something to do with it.

It came about in response to two distinct yet overlapping problems:

1. as an avid reader, I was constantly on the lookout for new books and new authors to devour
2. as an author, I constantly had to hunt for beta readers – people I didn’t know who would offer me unbiased feedback on my stories.

These problems converged, and Booktesters is the result. It’s a place where readers and writers come together at just the right moment. Readers will get an endless supply of new, free books to read, and authors will get that valuable unbiased feedback.

It’s in Beta right now, which means it’s open for new testers to join but not yet open to authors.

There’s just one problem remaining: How do I let everyone know about it?

Ok, so there are no-doubt millions of new websites in town, but this one is different. It’s called BookTesters.com, and I may have had something to do with it.

It came about in response to two distinct yet overlapping problems:

1. as an avid reader, I was constantly on the lookout for new books and new authors to devour
2. as an author, I constantly had to hunt for beta readers – people I didn’t know who would offer me unbiased feedback on my stories.

These problems converged, and Booktesters is the result. It’s a place where readers and writers come together at just the right moment. Readers will get an endless supply of new, free books to read, and authors will get that valuable unbiased feedback.

It’s in Beta right now, which means it’s open for new testers to join but not yet open to authors.

There’s just one problem remaining: How do I let everyone know about it?

So, what’s the second most important lesson I ever learned? Simply this: Finish it!

Again, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to write. Get it done. Don’t stop until you finish. Don’t edit until you’ve got something worth editing.

If it isn’t finished, you can’t do anything with it, and you won’t get paid.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet a surprising number of people – beginners, mostly – seem stumble over this basic concept.

An example

I encountered one of these non-finishers quite by chance a couple of weeks ago. I was at a restaurant with Nina, my wife, and there was a large group seated at a table nearby and talking fairly loudly.

I didn’t much care about what they were saying until about half-way through the meal, when a woman asked a guy who must have been close to my age (forty-ish) how his writing was going.

Naturally, that got my attention. I stopped talking, stopped eating, and stopped pretty much everything except listening.

It turned out that like me, the guy’s genre of choice was fantasy. Like me, he preferred his stories novel-length. Like me, his stated ambition was to be a full-time novelist.

I was amazed. What were the odds of two guys with such similar ambitions and inclinations sitting at adjacent tables at the same restaurant, at the same time on the same day?

But then the woman said, “So this is your first novel?”

“Yes,” said the guy. Ok, so we may have had a few similarities, but at that point I figured I had a bit more experience. I’ve written several novels, not all of which are published. But I still kept listening, because it was still interesting.

Then she asked the question which killed that interest dead.

“And how long have you been working on it?”

“About seven years. Off and on, you know. I’m getting there – I’ve probably done about 60 percent of the first draft.”

Seven years

Seven years! To my mind, that’s at least six and a half years too long for any first draft. Not one of my novels has taken longer than three months to get the initial draft done. I completed the draft of my most recent novel (Fracture – not yet published) in just 47 days, and I’m hoping to finish the first draft of my next one in even less time (mostly because I’ve got just a small window of time to work with).

Now, I’m very much aware that different people will work in different ways. For example, I know writers who write with the radio blasting out hard rock at 200 decibels, whereas I crave total silence and find it difficult to concentrate in the presence of a loudly ticking clock.

But let’s get serious here. In the time that this random guy has taken to complete 60 percent of the first draft of his first novel, I’ve finished four novels, stopped writing a half-dozen others that weren’t showing any sign of working, and written six other non-fiction books (under a different name).

More importantly, I’m a much better writer – and storyteller – than I was at the start of that seven year time-frame. And, given that I also see the world in a totally different way, the stories that I want to tell are completely different as well.

If I had tried to write just one book over that seven years, that book would very likely be disjointed, uneven, and ultimately unsatisfying – even to me.

As well as all that, if it takes ten years to complete a single book, then you’ve got to be incredibly lucky to be able to make a living from it. That ten years worth of effort has to produce something that the publishing industry believes in, and that the public will buy – in other words, it has to be a hit.

I’m not that lucky (I’ve proved this over and over again). Few people are. A better strategy is to write as much as you can, finish it, and learn from the publishing industry/buying public’s response.

Advice

Again, everyone is different, but if I’d wanted to be rude enough to interrupt that wannabe writer’s dinner and offer my unasked-for advice, that advice would have been this: ditch your seven-year project. Start something that you know you can finish. And finish it!

I’d offer the same advice to anyone else in the same position.

So, what’s the second most important lesson I ever learned? Simply this: Finish it!

Again, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to write. Get it done. Don’t stop until you finish. Don’t edit until you’ve got something worth editing.

If it isn’t finished, you can’t do anything with it, and you won’t get paid.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet a surprising number of people – beginners, mostly – seem stumble over this basic concept.

An example

I encountered one of these non-finishers quite by chance a couple of weeks ago. I was at a restaurant with Nina, my wife, and there was a large group seated at a table nearby and talking fairly loudly.

I didn’t much care about what they were saying until about half-way through the meal, when a woman asked a guy who must have been close to my age (forty-ish) how his writing was going.

Naturally, that got my attention. I stopped talking, stopped eating, and stopped pretty much everything except listening.

It turned out that like me, the guy’s genre of choice was fantasy. Like me, he preferred his stories novel-length. Like me, his stated ambition was to be a full-time novelist.

I was amazed. What were the odds of two guys with such similar ambitions and inclinations sitting at adjacent tables at the same restaurant, at the same time on the same day?

But then the woman said, “So this is your first novel?”

“Yes,” said the guy. Ok, so we may have had a few similarities, but at that point I figured I had a bit more experience. I’ve written several novels, not all of which are published. But I still kept listening, because it was still interesting.

Then she asked the question which killed that interest dead.

“And how long have you been working on it?”

“About seven years. Off and on, you know. I’m getting there – I’ve probably done about 60 percent of the first draft.”

Seven years

Seven years! To my mind, that’s at least six and a half years too long for any first draft. Not one of my novels has taken longer than three months to get the initial draft done. I completed the draft of my most recent novel (Fracture – not yet published) in just 47 days, and I’m hoping to finish the first draft of my next one in even less time (mostly because I’ve got just a small window of time to work with).

Now, I’m very much aware that different people will work in different ways. For example, I know writers who write with the radio blasting out hard rock at 200 decibels, whereas I crave total silence and find it difficult to concentrate in the presence of a loudly ticking clock.

But let’s get serious here. In the time that this random guy has taken to complete 60 percent of the first draft of his first novel, I’ve finished four novels, stopped writing a half-dozen others that weren’t showing any sign of working, and written six other non-fiction books (under a different name).

More importantly, I’m a much better writer – and storyteller – than I was at the start of that seven year time-frame. And, given that I also see the world in a totally different way, the stories that I want to tell are completely different as well.

If I had tried to write just one book over that seven years, that book would very likely be disjointed, uneven, and ultimately unsatisfying – even to me.

As well as all that, if it takes ten years to complete a single book, then you’ve got to be incredibly lucky to be able to make a living from it. That ten years worth of effort has to produce something that the publishing industry believes in, and that the public will buy – in other words, it has to be a hit.

I’m not that lucky (I’ve proved this over and over again). Few people are. A better strategy is to write as much as you can, finish it, and learn from the publishing industry/buying public’s response.

Advice

Again, everyone is different, but if I’d wanted to be rude enough to interrupt that wannabe writer’s dinner and offer my unasked-for advice, that advice would have been this: ditch your seven-year project. Start something that you know you can finish. And finish it!

I’d offer the same advice to anyone else in the same position.

The problem with this is that the author must make judgments about what works and what doesn’t, all by him/herself, about a piece of writing that they wrote and are unable to be objective about.

I’ve tried that approach before, with both The Mage’s Servant and The Mage-Wrought Warrior.  It works too, but it isn’t the only way—and might not be the best option.

A new way – Beta Readers

So now I’m trying something new. I’m actively looking for feedback for my new novel “Fracture – A Fantastic Tale”, and I’m doing it now—before my new novel is published.

The draft is done. The characters are in place. It’s in pretty good shape, but the final edit is some time away. There’s still room to move; if something needs to be changed, I can change it.

So this is your chance. Download it by signing up here. Read it. Get your friends to read it too. And tell me what you think!

Let me know:

• Does it work?
• Are there parts you skipped over?
• How do you like the cover?
• What could be improved?
• Did you find a mistake?

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you’ve got any ideas for the sequel, let me know what they are! (I have my own ideas, but yours might be even better!)

Well, the giveaway has just ended. It generated a fair amount of interest, with 1167 people entering. I guess that’s not too bad – more than average, but well short of the number who enter giveaways for big-name authors.

Fair enough, I guess – but I’ll get there one day.

Anyway, I’ll be shipping the books to the winners directly from Amazon, as it’s considerably easier to do it that way than to post them from my home in New Zealand – and cheaper, too!

I very much hope the winners both enjoy the book.

Even if your book is truly original, very well written, and the potential bestseller you no-doubt think it is, your journey will be long and the success you wish for is not guaranteed. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That’s not to say it’s impossible. I know people – although not many – who have done it. Hell, let’s be honest here, I’ve even done it myself, although the experience was one I’d prefer to block from my conscious mind. Maybe I’ll tell you about that some day. Give you a little scare, if you need it.

But, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post (So you want to be a novelist, huh? Are you crazy?) it isn’t easy – and for very good reasons.

Like many of you, I once thought it couldn’t be that hard. I mean, the best-selling novelists who write about their experiences agree: all things come to those who are willing to put in the effort for a sufficient length of time. But I was naive back then, and I had a wildly inaccurate view of what publishing companies did.

What Hollywood says publishers do

I’d bought into the Hollywood interpretation of a publishing company. You know that one. You might even believe it yourself, but if you do, you’d be just as wrong as I had been.

Picture this: a busy publishing company, with teams of people spending every waking moment eagerly working their way through a never-ending slush-pile of manuscripts, hoping to find that one piece of gold among all the imitators and wannabes. It’s a high-priority task, and the whole company depends on its success.

When the slush-pile readers find that one piece of gold – yours, naturally – they rush to the editor in chief, who greets the news with calm excitement, secure in the knowledge that the publishing company can continue to thrive in an ever-more-competitive market.

Sound familiar? It’s a story filled with hope, both from the author’s perspective and that of the publishing company. And if it really worked like this, it might not be so bad.

Trouble is, it’s not like that at all.

What it’s really like

Publishing companies do not value the slush pile. Many of them – if not most – don’t even have a slush pile any more. To them, wading through all that slush is just too hard, too expensive, and too uncertain of producing anything worthwhile.

On top of that, they don’t need to wade through slush-piles any more – because there are others (eg agents) who are more than willing to do that for them, at no direct cost.

Which is great for the publishing company, because it frees them up to do the thing that they’re in business to do, which is to make money from selling books.

But hang on, don’t publishers need new authors all the time?

Sure. Kind of.

How it works

You see, a new publisher might well be on the hunt for new talent in exactly the manner described above. But the old established ones? They don’t need so many. In fact, they need very few.

Typically, they have a stable of established authors who they know will pump out a best seller every year. That’s their bread and butter. That’s what keeps their business alive.

Think about it. This means that as long as those authors remain in the publisher’s stable, content with the status quo, the publishers DO NOT NEED anyone else.

Sure, depending on exactly how many authors we’re talking about, there’s guaranteed to be some movement. An author might retire or otherwise stop writing. They might get offended by something and look to switch publishers. But that’s about it.

So that means that in a good year, a publisher might need to find maybe as few as two new authors to maintain the status quo. They might need five. Anything more than that is a bonus. And given the number of wannabe authors and agents there are, all pushing for the publisher’s attention, is it any wonder that they can take an extremely cynical view of your finely crafted masterpiece?

An additional hurdle

Ok, so some of you might be thinking, “Sure, the chances are slim. I knew that. But my story is just so cool, how could they not like it?”

Again, you’re thinking about it the wrong way. It isn’t about “liking” your book – or at least not so much. It’s about believing it will sell – and that’s a really big hurdle to get over.

Why? Because it’s a risk to publish a book. There are a whole bunch of costs to consider, from the set-up costs like editing, cover art and (if you’re lucky enough) the author’s advance all the way through to the big expenses, the printing, distribution and marketing.

For a publisher to pick up your book, they have to be firmly convinced not only that it will cover all those costs and more, but that it’ll make a substantial profit as well.

If there’s any doubt, they won’t do it. Which means they’re more than happy to pass up dozens of potential bestsellers, as long as those they do pick up are pretty much guaranteed.

What it means for you

Now, let’s think about your book for a moment. Is it truly original, the type of thing the world has never seen? If it is, you might just be out of luck, because the publishers won’t know how to measure it. It’ll be too much of a risk, and they won’t take it. Try self publishing, or look for a publishing start-up.

Does your book fit squarely within an established genre, and reflect the best qualities of the biggest sellers within that genre? Good. You might have a chance.

What publishers ought to know

I think publishers are starting to get the message, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do about it. The dynamic which gave rise to this lack of need to discover new talent is changing.

Self publishing is gaining traction like never before, and if you are an established author, it’s an option well worth considering. I mean, if you have a fan base of hundreds of thousands of people and they heard that you were ditching your publisher to go it alone, they’d still follow you. But instead of getting a lousy 15% royalty, you’d get 70% (for ebooks) and, if you go for print on demand, you can easily get 40% or more.

So why would you stay with your current publisher?

Also, the slush piles must be shrinking. Why would any author tolerate waiting in such a pile for up to a year, when the chances are good that they’ll then have to wait in another slush pile for just as long, and then another, until maybe a decade has passed?

Publishing on Amazon is easy enough, if you’re willing to work through it (see my post on Uploading to Amazon), and Createspace, Lulu, Lightning Source and many others offer an easy print on demand option. And it’s virtually instant. So what’s stopping you publishing your manuscript now?

Given this changing dynamic, what will publishers do? Their authors will soon leave them in droves, and slush piles won’t be as good a source of new talent as they might once have been. So, will the publishers make themselves more available? Will they offer incentives to attract the authors they need to survive?

Or will traditional publishers vanish off the face of the earth?

Only time will tell.

Now, please keep in mind that I still work a regular day job (part time), and my role is all about keeping websites up-to-date and making sure they’re user friendly. I also do edit the code, test new functionality and write usability scripts. Even this site. Sure, it’s hardly the most complex website in the world, but I put it together, and I manage and maintain it personally.

I’m absolutely not a technophobe.

Not idiot proof

So imagine my surprise when Amazon’s tool through which you upload your files turned out not to be as straight-forward and idiot-proof as everything I read about it suggested it would be.

I first tried uploading a Word doc, because that’s what I wrote my stories in and the formatting was fairly straight-forward (no images or anything). But the end product (I downloaded a copy to preview it on my desktop Kindle app) lacked indents for the paragraphs.

A quick check with Google suggested that most people had trouble getting rid of indents they didn’t want. For me, I wanted them, but couldn’t seem to get them. I tried a number of different formatting options within Word, but no dice.

So I thought I’d try a different approach.

KindleGen

I went looking for a conversion tool so I could create the ebook before uploading it. The first one I came across was called KindleGen, and it was on Amazon’s site itself. Must be good, right?

Nope. Not even close. First of all, this thing was huge. 80 MB. It took about twelve minutes to download (ok, so my connection speed isn’t the greatest), and when it did, what did I find? A stupid piece of junk with no GUI (graphical user interface – the bit that makes it usable for most people).

To use it, I had to start fiddling about with the command prompt (check this out if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Now, remember I said I’m not a technophobe? I’m not. I’ll try most things, and I tried this too. But after twenty minutes of getting precisely nowhere, I figured there must be a better way.

I gotta say, Amazon, I expected better.

Mobipocket

Then I found and downloaded Mobipocket. Mobipocket is owned by Amazon as well, and I don’t know why they don’t simply point people in that direction and be done with it.

I found Mobipocket simple and intuitive. It was just what I was expecting with KindleGen, and didn’t get it.

In moments I’d converted my Word doc to a .mobi (which is the Kindle file format) equivalent (specifically .prc), as well as a few others formats including .html.

I tested it by opening it with my Kindle viewer, adjusted a few formatting things I didn’t like and converted it again. In less than quarter of an hour, I was happy with the results, so I uploaded the .prc equivalent in Amazon, expecting my indenting issues to go away.

Not done yet

They did. When I downloaded a preview copy, the indents were just where they should have been. But then I noticed a minor formatting issue I hadn’t seen before.

Because I’m a perfectionist at heart (always have been – in part, it’s why I’ve regularly earned a living as an editor), I couldn’t help but fix that minor formatting issue, convert it again and upload it.

Because I like to make sure that everything has gone right, I downloaded the preview file again – and saw that it hadn’t changed. It still contained the formatting error.

Hmmm.

I deleted the downloaded Kindle file just to check that it wasn’t a caching thing on my end and downloaded the preview file once more. Nope. I checked to make sure I’d uploaded the right file. I had. I uploaded it again. Still the same.

What on Earth?

I sent a message to Amazon, asking for advice, and went off to bed grumbling that I hadn’t completed the task I’d set for myself. The next day, I gave it one last go. I uploaded the same ebook in HTML format, and it worked!

(Of course, when Amazon got around to reading my message, they got all confused – but there was no option to update that message, so I did all I could.)

Another issue

There is another issue with the Kindle publishing thing. The preview options just suck. The Simple Previewer doesn’t show you what your audience will see, so to my way of thinking it’s essentially useless. The Enhanced Previewer is a massive file, and it also apparently doesn’t show you exactly what the audience will see. So why bother with it?

My advice is to do what I did. If you don’t have a Kindle, download the Kindle app and view it that way. It’s simple to do and it works.

Why doesn’t Amazon just list that as an easy option?

And one more

Another thing to be aware of is when you finally submit, it can spend up to a couple of days ‘in review’. During this time, you can’t edit anything. If you spot something amiss (like I did), you’ve got to wait for the review process to finish before fixing the issue and resubmitting it – which puts it straight back into review.

How hard would it be to have a simple button to push that takes it out of review? It would certainly save publishers some time.

From now on

From now on, whenever I publish things in Kindle format on Amazon, I’m going to use Mobipocket and check everything like mad before uploading. I’m then going to upload the HTML file, and use my Kindle app to check that it’s all good.

A kinder word

All this might make you think I’ve got something against Amazon. Well, I don’t. Not really. Sure, there are a couple of things I’d prefer them to do to make my life even easier (for example, making CreateSpace more of an option for non-US residents), but the reality is that they’ve changed the way publishing works forever.

They’ve made ebooks a more viable option, and brought publishing in reach of pretty much anyone with an internet connection.

While that’s not all good – it had opened things up for an amazing amount of garbage to hit the virtual bookshelves – it has made it much easier for independent publishers to make their mark.

And that has got to be a good thing.

Now, please keep in mind that I still work a regular day job (part time), and my role is all about keeping websites up-to-date and making sure they’re user friendly. I also do edit the code, test new functionality and write usability scripts. Even this site. Sure, it’s hardly the most complex website in the world, but I put it together, and I manage and maintain it personally.

I’m absolutely not a technophobe.

Not idiot proof

So imagine my surprise when Amazon’s tool through which you upload your files turned out not to be as straight-forward and idiot-proof as everything I read about it suggested it would be.

I first tried uploading a Word doc, because that’s what I wrote my stories in and the formatting was fairly straight-forward (no images or anything). But the end product (I downloaded a copy to preview it on my desktop Kindle app) lacked indents for the paragraphs.

A quick check with Google suggested that most people had trouble getting rid of indents they didn’t want. For me, I wanted them, but couldn’t seem to get them. I tried a number of different formatting options within Word, but no dice.

So I thought I’d try a different approach.

KindleGen

I went looking for a conversion tool so I could create the ebook before uploading it. The first one I came across was called KindleGen, and it was on Amazon’s site itself. Must be good, right?

Nope. Not even close. First of all, this thing was huge. 80 MB. It took about twelve minutes to download (ok, so my connection speed isn’t the greatest), and when it did, what did I find? A stupid piece of junk with no GUI (graphical user interface – the bit that makes it usable for most people).

To use it, I had to start fiddling about with the command prompt (check this out if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Now, remember I said I’m not a technophobe? I’m not. I’ll try most things, and I tried this too. But after twenty minutes of getting precisely nowhere, I figured there must be a better way.

I gotta say, Amazon, I expected better.

Mobipocket

Then I found and downloaded Mobipocket. Mobipocket is owned by Amazon as well, and I don’t know why they don’t simply point people in that direction and be done with it.

I found Mobipocket simple and intuitive. It was just what I was expecting with KindleGen, and didn’t get it.

In moments I’d converted my Word doc to a .mobi (which is the Kindle file format) equivalent (specifically .prc), as well as a few others formats including .html.

I tested it by opening it with my Kindle viewer, adjusted a few formatting things I didn’t like and converted it again. In less than quarter of an hour, I was happy with the results, so I uploaded the .prc equivalent in Amazon, expecting my indenting issues to go away.

Not done yet

They did. When I downloaded a preview copy, the indents were just where they should have been. But then I noticed a minor formatting issue I hadn’t seen before.

Because I’m a perfectionist at heart (always have been – in part, it’s why I’ve regularly earned a living as an editor), I couldn’t help but fix that minor formatting issue, convert it again and upload it.

Because I like to make sure that everything has gone right, I downloaded the preview file again – and saw that it hadn’t changed. It still contained the formatting error.

Hmmm.

I deleted the downloaded Kindle file just to check that it wasn’t a caching thing on my end and downloaded the preview file once more. Nope. I checked to make sure I’d uploaded the right file. I had. I uploaded it again. Still the same.

What on Earth?

I sent a message to Amazon, asking for advice, and went off to bed grumbling that I hadn’t completed the task I’d set for myself. The next day, I gave it one last go. I uploaded the same ebook in HTML format, and it worked!

(Of course, when Amazon got around to reading my message, they got all confused – but there was no option to update that message, so I did all I could.)

Another issue

There is another issue with the Kindle publishing thing. The preview options just suck. The Simple Previewer doesn’t show you what your audience will see, so to my way of thinking it’s essentially useless. The Enhanced Previewer is a massive file, and it also apparently doesn’t show you exactly what the audience will see. So why bother with it?

My advice is to do what I did. If you don’t have a Kindle, download the Kindle app and view it that way. It’s simple to do and it works.

Why doesn’t Amazon just list that as an easy option?

And one more

Another thing to be aware of is when you finally submit, it can spend up to a couple of days ‘in review’. During this time, you can’t edit anything. If you spot something amiss (like I did), you’ve got to wait for the review process to finish before fixing the issue and resubmitting it – which puts it straight back into review.

How hard would it be to have a simple button to push that takes it out of review? It would certainly save publishers some time.

From now on

From now on, whenever I publish things in Kindle format on Amazon, I’m going to use Mobipocket and check everything like mad before uploading. I’m then going to upload the HTML file, and use my Kindle app to check that it’s all good.

A kinder word

All this might make you think I’ve got something against Amazon. Well, I don’t. Not really. Sure, there are a couple of things I’d prefer them to do to make my life even easier (for example, making CreateSpace more of an option for non-US residents), but the reality is that they’ve changed the way publishing works forever.

They’ve made ebooks a more viable option, and brought publishing in reach of pretty much anyone with an internet connection.

While that’s not all good – it had opened things up for an amazing amount of garbage to hit the virtual bookshelves – it has made it much easier for independent publishers to make their mark.

And that has got to be a good thing.

In my last post, I wrote about finally getting the cover for my story, The Battle of Graytower Keep. Since then, a lot has happened – including a complete change in direction.

You see, I thought I was writing a series. The Battle of Graytower Keep was going to be the first title in that series, with Urgitwoods set to be book number two. But that would have made a couple of fairly short books, of 40 000 and 50 000 words.

I talked to some people. Thought about it. Talked some more. And decided that I’d prefer to err on the side of giving my readers more than they bargain for rather than less.

So I’m putting the two stories together to make one book of slightly more than 90 000 words. It’s now a decent size, and I think it makes the story more complete.

Doing so has meant a little more editorial work, and a change of title – which meant the cover also needed to be updated. Check it out.

(Note: The Mage-Wrought Warrior will be available very soon.)