New Release! Utterances

Happy Wednesday, everyone! EEP! It's release day for Utterances! I hope you're as excited as I am. Before we get rolling with the details, I'm gonna tell you a little about the book outside what the blurb says--from the author's mouth. After, I'm gonna give you a sneak peek at the INSIDES of the print book. So pretty. Ready? Grab your coffee or tea, and let's get going!

So, from the blurb, you can probably surmise that we're dealing with some pretty gnarly illnesses in this book. Cancer, dementia, and obsession are the top three. Why did I go into all that? Honestly, I have no idea. I started this book back in 2014, and none of the things on the pages had come to fruition at that time. I wrote a solid 20k or so, and then I set the MS aside and worked on other things. Then life happened, and I was handed some unique perspective for my story.

Utterances is a culmination of everything I learned during that year-long journey. Because I went through exactly what Simone was dealing with, I could relate to her on a raw level. Tons of the emotional turmoil she goes through is directly linked to things I experienced.

Things like fear of losing someone you love, and thoughts and emotions you have when you believe you have the power to save them as long as you can hold onto something else. The fear of losing that something else and being powerless. It all goes hand-in-hand with the story.

Simone is faced with a tough choice, and I did consider what the average human might do. You'll have to read for yourself to see what she chooses and why.

Anyway, enough of my rambling! On to the pretties! Here's the full wrap cover:

Here's a peek at the inside of the print book:

And here's the information (including the blurb):

Title: Utterances
Author: Jo Michaels
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Fantasy
Length: 77k words
Buy Links: Amazon Kindle $2.99 ~ Paperback $15.99

Blurb:
Simone spent the last two years by her cancer-ridden mother’s bedside. Taking care of her was the number one priority. When Mom suddenly goes into full remission, Simone is left bobbing in an unfamiliar ocean with a young man named Tristan. What happens next is the stuff of fairy tales—and nightmares.

Shocking, heart-wrenching, and insightful, Utterances will make you question everything you thought you knew about self-sacrifice. Award-winning author Jo Michaels pulls reality and the paranormal together in a way never before seen, intensely examining what we call the human condition by diving into the innermost workings of one young lady’s mind.


I hope you grabbed it! If you did, let me know what you think!

Happy reading!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE READ ON!

Jo

Pre-Formatting Your Book - The Dos and Don'ts Your Formatter Wants You to Know

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'll be talking about something that not many folks discuss: How you should format your word document before you send it off to your formatter for typesetting and digital readiness. Ready? Grab your coffee or tea, a notebook and pen, and let's get going!

I'm just gonna hit you with a couple of lists. Easy peasy.

DOS

• Use "normal" style always.
• Add some indicator when creating a scene break (most authors I work with use *** for this).
• Keep it simple. If there's a place you'd like a photo, don't embed it, mark the spot and include the photo with the manuscript.
• Everything set in one font, and don't use anything that's not standard on a computer. I suggest Times New Roman in 12pt.
• Use paragraph styles for your indents.
• Include a title page, copyright page with all relevant info, and author bio page at the end.
• Break your pages between chapters ONLY. Use Ctrl (or Cmnd) + Enter (or Return).
• If you have a section you want set in a special way, note it in BOLD and use [brackets]. Tell your formatter beforehand that it's there. 
• Title all your chapters the same way (whatever you want the end result to be: Chapter 1, Chapter One, Ch1, etc...).

DON'TS

• Do not use tabs (see above note on paragraph styles).
• No LARGE or special fonts. This will get stripped out anyway.
• Don't hit enter a bunch of times between chapters to force the next one down.
• Don't just add extra carriage returns between scene breaks. This looks like a mistake and could be removed on accident by your formatter.
• Nothing fancy. Your MS should just be words on the page.
• Do NOT use TABS. Yeah, it bears repeating.
• Don't make assumptions that the formatter will know anything you intended in your head. Give them instructions. Be specific if your book calls for special treatment.
• No colored fonts, please.
• No wingdings or emoticons. If you want a smiley, let the formatter know in the email where you attach your manuscript.

If you follow these guidelines, it'll speed up production of your book tenfold. Special things the formatter misses the first time around causes a re-do, and it just leaves you both stressed.

I hope this helps in some small way. Your formatter is there to make your dreams a reality. They're the ones that polish your baby before you show it to your friends, family, and the world. Help them help you!

If you're looking for formatting services, take a gander at IBGW.

Are you guilty of any of these?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Whatever Jo Wants Wednesday #3 - Tips and Tricks on Writing, Marketing, and Much More

Happy hump-day, everyone! Today, I'm talking about my little tips and tricks page here on the blog. I spend one month a year organizing it, adding alllll the posts from the year prior, and giving little descriptions so you can find what you're looking for quickly and easily. Let's dive into what's there, shall we? Get your clicking fingers ready, grab your coffee, and let's roll!

Here are the topics:

WRITING TIPS
This is broken down into Characters, Plot, Craft, and Tips and Tricks (like using MS Word to measure pacing, how to use Google Drive to collaborate, and more).

ADVICE ON EVERYTHING
Where to write, things to do to help you write, book swag, and other stuff. All clearly defined for your reading and browsing pleasure.

EDITING TIPS
If you're in the self-editing stage of your novel, this is where you want to be. Broken down into Punctuation, Dialogue, Pronouns, Variation, and Word Usage, you'll find everything you need to help your editor help you.

ORGANIZATION TIPS
Tips to help you organize yourself, your book, AND your files.

WRITING EXERCISES
Things to help you practice your writing. Games you can play with the family and dialogue exercises, too!

BOOK FORMATTING
What should be there, how you can get your novel ready to publish, and a few warnings.

EDITORS AND CONTRACTS
About the different kinds of editors and a breakdown of several contracts.

BRANDING YOUR AUTHOR SELF
Genres, look and feel, and why how you behave matters.

SERIES POSTS 
All the series posts I've written: Human Nature, Enneagram Types, Branding, Look at your xXx, Becoming a Book Blogger, and Punctuation (that one is fun).

FREE PDFS
All the PDFs I've created here for you to download, keep, and share for FREE!

BLOGGING AND BLOG TOURS
There's one on branding and one is a workbook to help you check your novel and fix holes (THIS IS A NEW TOPIC FOR 2016).

MARKETING TIPS  
Tools you can use to help you navigate the online waters and marketing ideas I've had.

I hope you find useful stuff on these pages. Every now and then, I throw archived posts out there into the ether and hope someone finds them when they're needed. I'm seriously considering focusing on social media how to this year.

Which one is your favorite?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Indie-Visible PubHub Launches

Hey writers!

Did you know you can visit Indie-Visible's PubHub to build your own publishing team?

Indie-Visible is giving extra focus to the PubHub side of things and want to give a big shout out to our AWESOME TEAM OF FREELANCERS.

Indie authors can use this list of highly recommended professionals to "Build Their Publishing Team" and gain assistance in all phases of the publishing process. Propel your next book to the heights of success with expert content editing, copy editing, proofreading, cover art, formatting, interior design, and marketing. PubHub has it ALL! In addition to building your team, PubHub also provides ongoing Expert Articles with tips and advice on all phases of publishing, including the business side of being an author. Indie-Visible's goal is provide a one-stop, interactive site for all indie authors seeking assistance, encouragement, and a team to root for them.  

New to Indie-Visible? Check out the Soft Launch Post for a nice overview of what they do. If you haven't yet familiarized yourself with them, I encourage you to head on over to their site, get to know The Literacy League Crew, and subscribe to the two Hubs for tons of fun and informative posts.

If you've been following their posts, THANK YOU!

If you haven't yet subscribed to BookHub or PubHub, you can subscribe on any of their posts, or sign up here.

 Giveaway Alert!

As an added BONUS, if you subscribe to either or both Hubs, you will be automatically entered to WIN a fantastic prize package giveaway from the PubHub that will fulfill any author's dreams! This package will include a day blitz package from Red Coat PR, website design by Starling Magic, book cover art from MaeIDesign, branding from Whit&Ware, and more!

Next Tuesday, there will be an official Giveaway Post with all the pertinent details coming soon. It is something you will not want to miss.

So, what are you waiting for? Go check out Indie-Visible and join me in bringing LITERARY JUSTICE TO ALL!

Notes on Createspace File Prep, and NaNoWriMo News

Happy Friday, everyone! Wow, this week flew by! I'm knee-deep in the launch prep for I, Zombie and have had so much fun shouting about it everywhere. We'll see how it goes. On to other, more production type things! Today, I'm talking about something to beware of when printing your book with Createspace. Let me start off by saying I love Createspace. I think they're the best, easiest option out there for Indie authors to get print books. However, the issue I'm detailing today really needs to be something they fix somehow. Perhaps a special account for those that know what they're doing.

So, I decided to release an anthology of the first 5 Mystic books in print and use the covers that will be changed globally when Markaza's book is released next year. Because of this, I also revamped the interior. Well, this caused me a huge problem. Let me show you what I mean; telling you isn't going to help.

I love typography. I think it makes some of the most beautiful art on the planet. Apparently, CS doesn't agree with this practice. When I uploaded my book with this pretty type-style artwork on the chapter openings pages:

(I adore it. What you see here is the page trimmed to the bleed lines. Now keep in mind, the M would disappear into the gutter quite a bit and it's cutting off the C and the dot on the I. Still, pretty, eh? And matches the cover perfectly!)

They rejected it.

Why? The reason they gave me is that the text is too close to the edge of the page which would result in quite a bit of it being cut off during production. There should be at least a .125" margin on all sides.

I e-mailed them and outlined that the text they were referring to wasn't meant to be read, it was there for artistic purposes, was a 330dpi image (this is why their auto-checker didn't find any issues), and there was a ONE inch margin around the text in the body of the book (more than they require, but an industry standard). Hell yeah, I was gonna fight for my design!

I waited less than 24 hours when a response showed up in my inbox. A human would try and explain my design to the other humans who look over the book and get the approval for the proof regardless. That person would try and push my design through to production and I should look for an answer sometime over the next two days. YAY!

Excitement flooded me! I was gonna get my beautiful type treatment!

My joy was short lived, however, when I was told there was no way the team could push it through.

Drats!

At that point, I'd exhausted all my options and decided to just reformat the chapter opening pages without my beautiful type art.

This is what I ended up with:

While still fun, and very Markaza-ish, it's just not what I would've preferred.

Oh well.

Why am I sharing this with you? To keep you from using type in a full bleed page design intended for Createspace and having them reject it. Twice. As always, I'm trying to save you from a permanent red spot on your forehead from banging it on the desk out of frustration.

Lesson learned. I feel like the bad child who had their hand slapped. *Note to self: Never EVER use type that might be cut off in ANY way in your book design until you've convinced CS to create a special account just for you*

Yeah, that's my next goal. I'm gonna try to get them to change the policy where this is concerned. *grin*

I'll keep you updated.

On to the next part of this post!

If you were a participant in NaNoWriMo this year, you're now able to go pick up your winner goodies! There's some awesome stuff on the offering block so I suggest you go check it out.

NaNoWriMo.org

Look very closely at the Lulu offer. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Have you ever experienced this kind of thing with your printer? How did you handle it?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Beautiful Books in Print

Happy Wednesday, everyone! What a lovely day it is. So, I was poking around my e-mail and came across a post that went up on The Book Designer. It's all about layout and page margins. If you have more than a moment, go check it out. Totally worth your time. So, today I'm gonna talk about another aspect of print book formatting: beautification. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Joel makes some excellent points in his post about a book designer needing to be detail-oriented. We pay attention to the things you may miss or may think aren't important. What I think needs to be added to that post is something about the designer beautifying the book beyond the typography (which is the number one consideration). If your designer doesn't know typography, your book won't look (or read) like it should. But, that's another post. For now, let's talk consistency and artistic elements that will make your book stand out from the crowd.

Consistency:
When I'm formatting a book, elements and typefaces from the cover can be found within the pages. Sometimes, I'll set the books text in one of the fonts used for the cover, but this is rare (display or title faces do not good reading make). Rather than use a font that doesn't flow well, I tend to use the display or title fonts for the details. Running headers (or footers) can be set in any typeface you'd like because they aren't put there to help you read. Page numbers can be adorned in many ways because they serve only to mark a place or add a bit of glamor to a page.

My favorite place to use the cover fonts is in the chapter titles and numbers. And, man, are there a ton of ways you can format that first page! It's the page where the text generally begins about halfway down and you have all that white space to play with. You can add flourishes, decorative type, images, logos, anything! Drop caps are fun, too! But any good designer is going to take the time to make sure it's consistent.

You don't want a flourish on chapter one and then not again until chapter thirty. You don't want story breaks to have boring white space between them. Above all else, you don't want someone to open the book and be shocked by how different the inside is from the outside. They should be wowed.

Beautification:
If I've read the book, my imagination goes a little wild when I'm adding those little details that make a book sing off the page. I sometimes use elements from the cover or story throughout the design.

Here are a few of my interior designs (I'm including the covers so you can see how they match):

(There's a chance to win a printed copy of that last book shown, Borrowed Things, running right here on this blog! Check it out!)

Those are the types of things I love to do when formatting books. That logo on Borrowed Things is repeated for every story break (smaller in size, of course).

A couple of books I was wowed by when I opened them:
Splintered by A. G. Howard
Reckless by Cornelia Funke
Fearless by Cornelia Funke

These are the book designs that stay with me. Sure, I remember stories from many books, but it's when I'm wowed by a design that I remember the story with vivid detail. Each of those links provides a look inside option. Go look inside! See what these people are doing. Love it. Learn from it. Your only restraints are your imagination!

I hope you all got a new perspective on book beautification and consistency in design today. I also hope you checked out Joel's blog and took his advice to heart. Remember, don't sacrifice readability for lower printing costs! Margins matter!

If you're interested in having a book formatted for print, contact me using this form.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Templates for Using MS Word to Format for Print

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm going to share some news and give you a coupon! How awesome are coupons? If you're an Indie author and you've been struggling to make your book look more professional through self-publishing platforms like CreateSpace, you're in for a treat.

Not long ago, I did a post about MS Word vs Adobe InDesign. I went through a few of the good and bad things for using each. Now, you have some additional options for making your book look awesome with MS Word. I know I'm not far off when I say, many of us just can't afford programs like Adobe InDesign and most of us wouldn't know how to use it even if we could. With InDesign, you can create books that look like this:

Now, I'm not saying you'll ever be able to do that with MS Word. I just don't know if it's possible. What I am saying is that you can have an awesome printed book for little to no cost. Keep reading.

I'm a regular subscriber to The Book Designer blog. His name is Joel Friedlander and he does a lot for those of us in the self-publishing world. If you don't already subscribe, I suggest you do so ASAP. It's a wonderful resource for Indie authors. Okay, moving on.

What's the big news? I'm getting to that!

Joel has partnered up with Tracy Atkins, author of Aeternum Ray and partner over at Dyslexiana, to bring you MS Word templates you can use to make your book look awesome in print. Yeah, I know, it was a little difficult for me to believe as well; but take a look at this post where Joel announces the launch. Those look pretty awesome, huh?

If you hop on over to their website BookDesignTemplates.com, you'll even get to download a free copy of their Book Design Templates Roadmap. It walks you through how to use the templates you buy. If you want to skip all the hubbub, you can go right on in and look at some of the templates available by clicking here.

Prices start at $37 each. But, after you buy one, you can use it time and again.

What's all this about a coupon?

Well, Joel is offering a coupon code for 41% off any template you buy. Holy moly, right? That makes each template's price start at just $15.17!! You can read all about it in his post here.

Without further ado, I give you the code: book41

You can follow Joel on Twitter, too. He's @JFBookman

Happy shopping!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

It Takes a Team

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm talking about the people it takes to bring a book from rough manuscript to published work of brilliance. Yup, that's right, your publishing team.

We all have folks we love to use for certain things. But how many people does it take to create a book? Let's have some fun and take a look inside this publishing madhouse, shall we?

• Writer. Without the writer, what's the point? They're the real powerhouses behind all that wonderful literature you consume. Their imaginations open up and drag you, kicking and screaming, into a whole new world.
• Editor. This is the person the writer should be buddies with. Not cappuccino drinking, dress shopping, book swapping buddies; but someone you get along with that you know has a staunch work ethic along with a firm grasp of the English language and the building blocks that make an excellent book. Like the ladies over at INDIE Books Gone Wild, eh?
• Proofreader. Someone else who can catch all those niggling little errors that throw readers out of the story. A misplaced comma, period, misused word, or errant thought thrown into a paragraph where it doesn't belong.
• Cover Designer. Your brilliance in art. Someone who can bring your story into an image that's compelling. They should also have a strong grasp of the art of Typography. This is your book's face. It should be clean and have the makeup applied properly.
• Book Formatting Guru. We all need one of these hanging around. Someone who makes us look good in print or on an e-reader.
• Sales Platform. This is the company that sells copies of your book and keeps part of the profit. We don't like them much, but they're a necessary evil and we all have a favorite one.

Yes, it takes a team to publish a book. Who's on your team?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Squids! Ewwww - Day Eleven WABC

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, we discuss Squidoo. A site a know a little about, but haven't really poked around until today. Still rolling with the Winter Author Blog Challenge (four days left), here's the prompt:

Do you have a Squidoo lens? Founded by Seth Godin, Squidoo is a popular free site that enables users to create single webpages (known as lenses) about their interests and recommendations. Users can even earn money for charity or themselves. The credibility-building potential rivals Quora, but unlike question-answering sites, Squidoo users are free to create content of their choosing. The SEO rankings are quite high – but it remains incumbent upon the site’s users to double-check the veracity of information provided. Challenge questions: What are the benefits to using sites like Quora and Squidoo for building credibility? What can they offer that your website or blog doesn’t already do? How could this help you sell more books? If you are on Squidoo, remember share the link to your favorite lens.

I now have a profile there. I created a lens there this morning. You can find it here: Formatting Your Book for Print.

Okay, how did I just use Squidoo? I created a lens with an excerpt from my book on self-publishing. This gives folks a look inside, some information, and a buy link. I also included URLs from my two sites: Jo Michaels ~ Author Blog and Indie Books Gone Wild.

By creating that lens, I gave folks a peek into what my book can do for them. If I wanted to create a lens to drive people to buy Yassa, my book on Genghis Khan's coming-of-age, I would talk about the man himself and what kind of things he went through to get to where he was when he died.

I can see the usefulness of Squidoo and I've been meaning to do what I did this morning for a while. Thank you, Laura, for pushing me to get it done. I think, unlike Quora, Squidoo can be a bigger help because you don't have to start with a question from someone else to get the ball rolling. You can answer a question you know lingers in the world wide web with your expertise and go from there. No prompting needed beyond your own drive.

I have a ton of work calling my name today. I hope you all enjoy the lens and take your own steps to creating one today! I look forward to seeing what others can do with Squidoo.

That's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Inches Picas and Points

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! How are you all today? I hope the start of this week brings you many smiles! Today, I'm gonna try and explain how inches, picas, and points are used in design. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

An inch is a common measurement used in the U.S. Picas and points are international, universal, measurements used in design work. These two units are used to measure type and layout sizes. That way, a designer in the U.S. can do work for someone in the U.K. or Japan and the measurements are the same without having to do a ton of conversions.

If you've ever looked at the size on your type, you'll notice it's referred to as: 12pt, 14pt, etc... A 12pt type size is also a one pica type size. Click on the image below for reference as we move along.

Allow me to break it down:
1inch = 6 picas
1 pica = 12 points

So when you see a measurement like 1.5" it equals 9p0. That's 9 picas and 0 points. We got there by taking 6 picas (one inch) and adding it to 3 picas (half an inch).

But wait! Adobe products do the conversions FOR you! If you have 12cm, you type in 12cm and hit tab and pow! you have your conversion (28p4.157). If you have 1.285 inches, you type in 1.285" and hit tab and pow! you have your conversion (7p8.52). How awesome is that?

So the next time you're designing that all important book cover, pay attention to the type size. Remember, your leading (the space between your lines of type) should be at least 1.5 of your type size. In other words, an 11 point typeface would get leading of around 16 or 17 points but a 9 point typeface would get 13 or 14. Your decision (I like 11 on 17 and 9 on 14). See image above for examples.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

A Chat

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Just two more days until the weekend arrives! Yay! Wow, great stadium cheer! Anywho, today I'm taking a formatting and writing day. Being indie authors, we have to do so much of our own work it's crazy. I bet you all agree when I say this feels more like a real job than many others I've had throughout the years. Of course, you'll always work harder when you work for yourself!

Different from a nine-to-five job, working for yourself tends to push your hand to sixteen hour days. It's a necessary evil but when you make those sales and the numbers go up it's like no other feeling in the world (except maybe a good review coming in).

Speaking of which, if you download an indie author's book free, please take the time to read it and leave a review. I know my fellow authors agree. We love to hear from our readers! Even if you just take a moment to shoot us an e-mail that speaks your mind, it means more than you think. Having an author that knows who you are and takes the time to talk with you (we're BUSY people) is like having a golden rod in your pocket you can brag about to the world and no one can steal. So, take the time to tell your author what you think. We read our fan mail!

I'm off to work on formatting my novel so all you lovely people can read it on release day! Only so many hours available and the week is almost over!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Restricted Fonts

It's hump day, good people of the blogosphere! That means just two more days until the weekend arrives if you can make it over the hump. Can I get a, "YAY!"? Come on, you know you want to!

Today, I'm going to bombard you all with information to help get you through today if you happen to be formatting a book, e-book, or designing a cover. This post is all about restricted fonts.

Anyone know what a restricted font is? Do you know how to check if the font is restricted before you use it? I have your answers! Read on...

A restricted font is one that cannot be embedded in a file. It's restricted to use on your personal machine.

But how do you know a font is restricted before you use it? Follow these step-by-step instructions for discovering if a font can be embedded before you use it in your file:

1. Open MS Word (I use 2007 so these instructions are for that version)
2. Click on the Acrobat tab at the top
3. Click on Preferences
4. Click on Advanced Settings
5. Select the folder icon for Fonts
6. Look under the section titled Embedding and find the font list
7. Scroll through and note the tiny icons on the left side of your fonts

• TT means it's a true type font.
• O means it's an apple (mac) font.
• If there's a lock icon there, that's a restricted font. You cannot embed those fonts. Make a list of them and avoid them like the plague when preparing a book or e-book.

Now, if you flatten your Photoshop file to a jpeg before you upload it, it will keep your font (even if restricted), but you can't use it to design the interior because it WILL NOT embed.

I hope this post helps you all to find and avoid those fonts that will give you hours of headaches if you use them.

On a happier note, I just released a smaller, less expensive version of Yassa in print! It's 11pt type and this book is only 5.5x8.5 (standard size). It's $10 less than the large print version and is just $7.99. You can find it here. Remember, the Yassa ebook is also on sale for the month of October for just $2.99, everywhere e-books are sold. For an easy link, click here.

Have you ever been pinged by the dreaded restricted font warning message?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo