Don’t miss this REAL iPad Mini raffle

 February is the best month.

Why? Valentine’s Day,



Photo by Kathy Ophelia http://kathy-ophelia.deviantart.com/

 and …

BestSelling Reads’ month-long giveaway!

The best authors in new fiction are celebrating the grand opening of BestSellingReads with a giveaway all February long.
BestSellingReads brings some of the most loved fiction under one roof. We’re best-selling authors, but like you, we’re also readers—and we know how to spot a great read and the writer who published it.
Throughout 2013 you’ll watch BSR expand to include many of new fiction’s most celebrated stars. We’re kicking off the grand opening of the BestSellingReads site with a great deal that lasts a whole month. Visit the site, enter the raffle and you could win an iPad Mini loaded with a book from every BSR author (including yours truly), or the winner’s choice of a $300 Amazon gift card.
Second and third prizes: $25 Amazon gift cards.
PLUS: if you add the BSR promotion to your blog, you have a chance at a $200 cash prize!
Visit http://www.bestsellingreads.com/february-ipad-mini-promotion/ for full details and to enter the Rafflecopter.
If there is one thing that Written Words readers know, it’s that you can trust me.

Reader reassurance

No scams, no malware, no hidden hack attempts here. So when I tell you about a chance to win an iPad Mini, you know it’s an honest promotion: a new group of authors I’ve joined, BestSelling Reads, is giving away an iPad Mini, and all you have to do is log into BSR’s Rafflecopter with your Facebook account or your email.

It’s secure and we’re not going to sell your contact information to anyone else.
http://www.bestsellingreads.com/february-ipad-mini-promotion/

Writing Tips: Smashwords allows direct uploading of EPUB files

This is big news for indie authors: Smashwords is now supporting the direct uploading of EPUB-formatted books for sale through its e-retail network.

According to the Smashwords Official Blog, the new Smashwords Direct “allows our authors and publishers to upload their own professionally formatted EPUB files for sale at the Smashwords store, and for distribution to the Smashwords retail distribution network.”

Until now, listing your book on the Smashwords e-catalog meant starting with a .doc file, formatted exactly according to Smashwords’ specifications, and uploading it into their proprietary Meatgrinder software. If you do everything just right (which isn’t that hard), Smashwords will give you back an e-book in whatever format you wanted, and list it on their e-bookstore.
If you follow all of Smashwords’ recommendations, it will also list your book in other e-bookstores: Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore, Diesel, Kobo and all the others — except for Amazon. And that’s because of Amazon, not because of Smashwords.

The Meatgrinder system is fully automatic. If you feel proficient with a word processor that can save a .doc format, you don’t have to learn another software application. Meatgrinder takes care of the formatting, program codes and everything else.

However, it is a little limiting. As someone who learned desktop publishing way back when, I like the ability to choose my typeface and format my pages the way I want them to look. Learning to use an EPUB creation program like Caliber is no sweat to someone who learned, successively, PageMaker, QuarkXPress, InDesign and then HTML.

To quote Smashwords itself:

EPUB files uploaded through this new Smashwords Direction option must still adhere to the formatting best practices listed in the Smashwords Style Guide. Books will still be reviewed by our vetting team before shipping out to our retailers.

The company points out some limitations to the new option. First, Meatgrinder converts a .doc file into nine different formats for just about every e-reader there is, including PDF and .MOBI for the Kindle. If you upload an EPUB file, that won’t happen. “Nor will you get the downloadable samples,” Smashwords says, although it promises to improve sampling and add the ability to upload PDF and .MOBI files directly, as well.

You can upload your book as a Word .doc file first, formatted to the Style Guide, and then replace our EPUB with your own (assuming your EPUB is higher quality). This way, you'll have the major formats covered.

The author’s best friend

While Amazon is by far the biggest e-bookstore (although I have not found any reliable market statistics), I think that Smashwords is the indie author’s best friend. Amazon’s Kindle Publishing System works in much the same way as Smashwords’, but the output is restricted to Amazon’s e-retailing system. What’s more, Amazon takes 30% of the selling price of the book, while Smashwords takes only 15%. (That commission rises, of course, for books sold through other bookstores like B&N, as each player gets a cut.)

Smashwords head honcho Mark Coker’s Secrets to EBook Publishing Success is the clearest and most useful explanation of how to create e-books that I have ever read, and the Style Guide is an indispensible tool. Amazon just doesn’t have anything like it.

Smashwords also has an easy-t0-use coupon system, which allows the author or publisher to offer discounts, even free books, to individuals.

You can also set your price to zero. Amazon only allows you to do that for five days out of ninety, and only if your book is exclusive to Amazon. I have tried it with some success, but overall, I prefer having my books on more than one retailer.

In short, Smashwords, the little guy, gives authors a whole lot more.

Check out the documentation for Smashwords Direct at https://www.smashwords.com/swdirect. And tell Written Words if you’ll try it.

Do the media reflect the world around us?

No.

Photo of Surrey, BC Marathon courtesy Indo-Canadian Voice

The world presented is the world that advertisers feel they can sell to easily: white people with lots of disposable income for designer cars, clothes and computers.

Best-selling indie author Martin Crosbie has invited some Canadian writers, including me, to answer the question: is the Canada he knows, that we all know, represented in the mass media?

He doesn’t see the country he knows in the major newspapers or magazines of the country. Another writer, Karen Magill of Vancouver, added that Canadian writers, like Canadians generally, feel an inferiority complex compared to the media dominance of the US, and as a result aren’t as eager to write about their own country. She writes that she as advised to set her novel, Missing Flowers, in a US city, rather than in Vancouver, British Columbia — her home town.

In my guest post, I wrote that neither the news media nor entertainment media reflect the country that I see around me. I touched on the types of professions in fiction, the settings, and about how closed commercial publishers are to new voices.

But indie authors are also missing something important. It seems that, in chasing that big audience, many indie authors are aping the conventions followed by mass publishers. As a result, indie fiction does not reflect the world that I see around me.

 

What’s missing? Diversity.

I know that many of my readers are writers themselves. I’ve been reading a lot of indie fiction lately, and unfortunately, many writers fall into some stereotyping traps. Most of the characters’ names are English, or occasionally Irish or Scottish. Cops are sometimes Italian or Polish. I’ve come across a smattering of Hispanic women TV reporters, for some reason, but almost no African-American characters.

Why is that? Whom do indie writers think they’re writing for?

I live in a major, modern North American city in the 21st century. The people that I live and work among come from, literally, around the world. Almost half the people I grew up with were immigrants, or their parents were. When I taught in college, my students came from China, Taiwan, Jamaica, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Iraq, Bolivia, Mexico, the US; in my neighbourhood, people come from India, Norway, Jamaica, Finland and China. And some were First Nations, Metis or Inuit.

If you’re reading this on the bus, subway, metro, train or ferry, look around: how many of your fellow commuters are white, of British extraction? Or are there people you can see are Asian, South Asian, African or Hispanic?

Think about your neighbours. How many of them have English last names? How many more are non-English? Sure, English may be the largest single ethnic group, but they’re not more than half anymore — I don’t even think that you’ll find a majority of English last names in most neighbourhoods in England, anymore.

Write what you know

Open your eyes, and write stories that reflect the world you live in. It’s not what’s in the mass media. And the only way we’re going to have an impact on this warped reflection is if we start to write about what is really in front of our eyes.

What do you think? How can writers start to reflect the country, the world, the reality that’s right around us, right now? Leave a comment.

Win free books from top indie authors!

Update—June 7th, 2012

As of today, the contest is over. But check out these great books from these great indie authors, anyway!

One-day BOOK PUSH—June 6th 2012

Four authors determined to bring their books to the world and to see them climb high in Amazon’s Ranks are holding a contest, and they've hijacked I've graciously offered my blog to help.

So don't miss out! There's a Zombie-ish apocalypse with a splash of romance, a romantic suspense with a dash of humour, a thriller with a huge helping of action and a YA-paranormal with a mystery blended in.

Something for everyone!

Sundered, A Zombie-ish Apocalypse

 

 

 

 

Red is an Attitude

—romantic suspense

Allegiance

— thriller/action-adventure

Cassidy Jones and Vulcan’s Gift

—YA/paranormal mystery

And you, dear readers, not only can help, you can WIN BIG while you’re at it.

The run-down

Purchase any ONE (1) of the books, and send your receipt to us and you’ll be entered in for a grand prize of $50.00 in Amazon Gift Cards! PLUS if you purchase all FOUR (4) books, not only will you have four entries, you’ll also be in for an additional SECRET DRAW.

Now, we can’t tell you what the draw is, because that would ruin the whole SECRET thing. But we will give you a hint. IT’S FABULOUS!

Okay, you want another hint? Hmm. How about doubling the gift cards?! Oh, right. Secret’s out.

What are you waiting for?

More stuff?

Well, If you insist.

Four randomly drawn entrants will win back their purchases. FREE BOOKS. Crickey!

Send all purchase receipts to shannonjmayer@yahoo.ca Winners will be drawn randomly, announced on June 8 at http://shannonmayer.blogspot.com

For additional information regarding this contest contact shannonjmayer@yahoo.ca.