Huffington Post Talks About the Shifting Landscape of Book Reviews

My mother sent me this wonderful article from the Huffington Post talking about the changing landscape not only of publishing, but of spreading the word regarding books; primarily through reviews.  They even bring up a topic I spoke on earlier; that of the need for bloggers not to ignore their own kind and review other self-published authors.

See it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/self-published-book-reviews_n_3467890.html

Heading to Nebraska for a Couple Weeks

I'm going to Nebraska for a couple weeks to do some signings, talking, teaching, and even take place in an 1800s period base ball game!  Here are the dates:

Friday, October 10 - 9:00 am - On the radio on Friday Live on NET radio, being interviewed by the great Genevieve Randall.

Saturday, October 11 - 1:30 - 3:00 - Appearance at A Novel Idea.  I will be signing copies of The American Game and Relic Worlds, and will be beginning to take pre-orders for the upcoming Two Gun Hart, which is due out next March.

Sunday, October 12 - 1:00 - ??? - Signing copies of The American Game at Arbor Lodge in Nebraska City.  I'll also probably take part in the vintage base ball game taking place on the yard.

Friday, October 17 - 1:00 - 2:30 - Speaking at the OLLI at UNL.  Taking place at NET.

Sunday, October 19 - 1:00 - ??? - I'll be at Bennett Martin Library for the 12th Victim talk.  (I actually won't be speaking at this one, but it should be an interesting event that I recommend everyone go to.)

Putting Together an Audio Book

Audible now distributes independently published audiobooks, which is great news for us independent authors.  Now all we need to do is read our books into a microphone to distribute them, right?

Turns out, it’s a bit harder than that; at least for those of us who have a bad stammer and aren’t used to acting.

The first thing we did was made my computer cabinet into a mini studio.  My neighbor at the time I did this happened to be a semi-professional recording artist.  Though I didn’t have a recording studio, I have doors on my cabinet that can be closed in around me, and when he put blankets on each door and above me, the recording into a mic in front of my screen looked great.  I read the book off the monitor as I spoke just above the microphone.  (Staying above it reduces pops; as does having a sock over the microphone.

Reading wasn’t so difficult; although I struggled with my mild form of dyslexia, stumbling over my words constantly.  I would have to fix it in post.  This involved going through after I was completely done and cutting every point where I stammered.  Recording took weeks, but post took months; so much so that the entire process took me more than a year and a half.  Now I know why audiobooks are so expensive.

I had done this one myself instead of getting an actor because I wanted to see the whole process.  (Also, for some reason, when I started it I thought it would go faster that way.  And I’m in the book, so I figured it would sound better when I said “I” to actually be the one speaking.)  I learned partway through that you can go to Audible and hook up with a reader through them.  Audible even splits the profits between you.  That’s what I will be doing from now on.

Researching Pro Bono

When researching my first non-fiction book, Pro Bono, I had a slightly unfair advantage.  I was starting with a story that my family has been involved with for decades.  I drew from stories I had grown up with, some of which I had lived through.  And a large amount of it came when I was doing a small documentary about my family.  It just happened to be when my grandmother was diagnosed with a fatal tumor, and everyone from the family flocked into town.  I never finished the documentary, but I did get a very thorough record of everyone, especially my grandfather, who everyone worshipped.

This was a baseline.  But I needed to be fair in the story.  This was about a controversial story that my grandfather happened to be wrapped up in.  I needed to do as much as possible to be objective, and see the opposite side’s point of view.

The first thing I did, as I do with most of my books, and all my non-fiction works, is I broke it into chapters.  I thought of what made appropriate breaks in the story, and I started each chapter at these points.  I determined the basic concept of each, then wrote down all the information that I would need for them.  By each piece of information, I wrote down every source I could think of for it.  I then approached those sources.

When it comes to a case that’s nearly 60 years old, it’s hard to get first-hand accounts.  Usually, you have to go to people who were assistants, or the children of one of the people.  Each time, I tried to get any documentation they had, such as phots or records.  Luckily, one of the most important people, Ninette Beaver, (who was a reporter that followed the story from beginning to end and even wrote a book about it,) was still alive and was able to tell me a lot about her experiences and what she saw.  I also got the only remaining copy of her documentary Growing Up in Prison.  It was on a format of tape that no longer exists, and there are only a couple places in the world that could even transfer it.  It was expensive, but worth the price as it was a piece of Nebraska history.  (I later placed this documentary on Youtube and have so far gotten more than 10,000 views.)

Perhaps the most important aspect of getting the story straight and unbiased was going to the Nebraska Historical Society where I was able to look at the original trial transcripts.  Purchasing this was, again, expensive, but well worth it, as it’s the only record of a case of great historic significance.  It’s also lucky, as most cases do not have their records preserved so well.

The problem at this point was I had the microfilm, but no way to look at it.  The best way to be able to would be to have it on PDF.  That meant scanning each page at the library and saving it as a JPEG, then combining them all into one big PDF… All 1,000 + pages.  I was luckily on unemployment at the time, so I went to the library for a full week, 40 hours, and scanned one page after another.  It was one of the most tedious things I ever did, but I got the entire thing on PDF.  I placed the first hundred pages on a website and offered to send it to anyone who wanted to see it so people could check my book for accuracy.  I then made sure to include this public record in the book in several chapters.

It took a lot more bringing together of several sources than I thought it would, but it was worth it.  On that book, more than any other, I want to be able to show everyone my sources, because I’m claiming that someone who many think was guilty was actually innocent.

The American Game Available for Free on Kindle This Weekend

The American Game will be available for free on Kindle this weekend as part of a KDP Select promotion.  It will be available for free on the Kindle from Friday, September 26, until Tuesday, September 30.  It can be found at:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Game-Jeff-McArthur-ebook/dp/B00LJII7GG/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1411618014&sr=8-1&keywords=The+American+Game+Jeff+McArthur

It may seem counter-intuitive to give away one's books for free, but each download counts as a sale, and if there are enough, it can get onto the best sellers list, at least in its category.  This helps with exposure, which leads to even more sales.  I will try to remember to post download results this weekend.

Making a Book Trailer

When you look up book trailers, you usually find very dry, dull, and most of all, cheap videos that leave you less likely to buy the book than when you started watching.  I don’t think this is from a lack of trying.  I think it’s from a lack of looking at it from the reader’s point of view, and a lack of creativity.

There are a lot of trailers that have the author reading the book.  In these cases, I can’t even tell you what he’s saying.  When given visual and audio cues, we tend to take the visual.  I hear “Person talking, person talking, person talking, person talking.”  It’s suggestion through visual leads.  There are many other trailers which show cliché images, like a person’s shadow while a narrator, (usually the author,) reads a part of the story which doesn’t show how the book stands out.  And then there are those trailers with just words.  I might as well just read the description at that point.

What works is making it look like a movie trailer, using the elements that make people go, “I wish I was watching THAT right now.”  If it’s a book, people will want to read it to get those same images in their head.

In doing this, the most important aspects are twofold.  First, be clear about what it is; and second, show how it stands out.  If you show a trailer that makes it look like every other book of the genre, people will just go, I’ve already seen it.

As for being clear, understand that this doesn’t necessarily mean showing it in chronological order, or showing whole scenes, or even telling the whole plot.  Sometimes getting the idea across includes showing a series of shots that express your story or theme.  In the case of many fiction stories, this means just showing clips of single lines of characters mixed in with other shots appropriate to the genre.

In non-fiction, the best route to go, I find, is some sort of documentary.  Make it clear that this is a true story, and make the images, words, and music go along with it.

How to get these images is the biggest question.  You’ll have to make a budget for it, but don’t break the bank on this.  You can get great stock pictures at several sites, like Pond 5 or Shutterstock.  Shooting actors in front of green screens makes it possible to put whatever you want behind them.  And sometimes what you want are images you don’t have to create.  For instance, if it’s non-fiction, you often want images from the true story itself, including photographs and newspaper clippings that are probably already in your book anyway, so you have the rights to them.

And if you’re not planning on showing your book on TV or some other place that requires all the rights to be cleared, you can get away with a lot more.  Youtube actually allows you to post video up of other people’s material, as long as you’re not making money on it.  If you’re doing a book trailer, you truly are not wanting to have other people’s commercials on it, because the trailer itself IS a commercial.  Therefore, you don’t need to be having commercials on it and making money from it.  Below are a couple examples of how I’ve done this.

Relic Worlds – Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World:  I used all sorts of images from other movies and video games, intercutting my actors in front of blue screens that were replaced by backgrounds that looked like the places in the movies and game videos, so they looked like they were in among the other, better visuals.  The cuts are usually so fast that most of it looks like it’s all part of the same scene.  Also, in true trailer form, I have a character start talking in one shot, and it carries over the next, which gives even more of a sense of connection.  To top it off, I used music from Battlestar Galactica, which not only sounded better, it appealed to BSG fans.  Youtube allows me to have this up, as long as I’m not making money directly from the trailer.  And I’m able to post the trailer up in various locations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcDFJT5RPQ8&list=UU1CcgAwLJ7dVsIEVVyQwaVg

The Great Heist – I mixed typewritten information with images from the book.  I then put it all to the music of The Untouchables, which is thematically appropriate to the material.  Again, while it’s not music that I own, as long as I’m keeping it on Youtube and not making money directly from it, it’s okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaFGR1CPmgA

Two of them that I’ve had a lot of luck with are the ones for Pro Bono and the Pick Your Path books.

Pro Bono – I did two videos in this case.  One of them was a semi-documentary where I mixed footage of an interview with my father talking about the case with images of the case itself all to Bruce Springsteen music that was written about the story.  The other is simply a real documentary that was made in the 1970s about the case.  This has been extremely popular, as it is a documentary lost to history about a case no one forgot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODW6uh1Bt0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LgGj5nFmoo

The pick your path books actually allows the viewer to pick a path.  They get the initial video, which takes them onto a planet where they follow the main character to some ruins.  He looks at three doors, and the reader gets to click on whichever one they wish to go through.  This takes them to a video that shows them what happens when they go through that door.  (Each one, of course, just leads them to one of the books.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC46wo5qAVU

Bloggers Who Have Forgotten Their Roots

As I’ve tried to get my books spoken about and reviewed by bloggers, I’ve come across the same problem so many times:  Signs on the blogging websites that say they will not take any self-published books.  They review or write only about traditionally published books.

I’ve got a little piece of news for all you bloggers who say that.  YOU ARE SELF PUBLISHED!!!!

Yes, that’s right.  As you’re sitting there behind your keyboard all holier than thou, taking only the “legitimately” published books, you are forgetting that one basic fact.  You are not in a magazine, a periodical, or any other “legitimate,” or “traditionally” published manuscript.  You are SELF-FUCKING-PUBLISHED!!!

I have been rejected by magazines, radio stations, and television stations.  While I’m disappointed, I’m not surprised and I don’t hold it against them.  They have a world of their own, and they want to stick to it.  I hope they’ll open themselves up to us independents, (and some of them have,) but if they don’t, they’re merely sticking to their kind.

You bloggers who won’t talk about or review self-published works are downright hypocrites.

If we have to be traditionally published to be good enough for you, why shouldn't you have to be traditionally published in a magazine in order to be good enough for us?

I have made a determination, and I call on everyone to do the same.  Whenever I look at blogs, even if I’m not in any way considering sending my books to them, I take a look at their submission policy.  If the blogger refuses to have anything to do with self-published works, either for stories, reviews, or whatever, I tag that blog and never return.  I also make it a point to tell people not to go to that blog.

Now, to be clear, this is not the same as being personally rejected by a blog.  If there’s a blog which rejects me, but they take independently published works, I’ll strive to rise to their level and hope they’ll accept me in the future.  I’ll even recommend the site.

But if you reject self-published, independently published books and you’re a blogger, then I’m sorry, but I only read traditionally published magazines.