Meddlers in Time

Smashwords 2011 in review

2012-01-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

"Welcome to my annual Smashwords year in review.

2011 was another strong year for Smashwords and our authors.

We're ending the year with over 92,000 titles published, up from 28,800 at the end of last year.

In my 2010 year in review post, 75,000 was my stretch goal for this year, so we beat it by a good margin.

Smashwords today supports over 34,000 authors and small publishers around the world, up from 12,000 a year ago.

I launched Smashwords four years ago with a crazy idea to change the way books were published, marketed and sold. I believed authors should have the freedom to publish directly to their readers without the interference of publishing gatekeepers. My ideas were not unique. The great Dan Poynter has been evangelizing the virtues of self-publishing for over 30 years..."

The rest of the story here: http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/smashwords-year-in-review-2011.html

The helmet hides the ears

2011-12-09T23:54:00.001-08:00

More time travel trekkie stuff

2011-11-28T22:42:00.001-08:00

Lower tech time travel

2011-11-19T21:53:00.001-08:00

...Is listening to the music of your youth...

More time travel pics

2011-11-12T10:58:00.001-08:00

This one isn't

2011-11-06T01:02:00.001-07:00

Its apparently a real photo

2011-10-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Engage FTL drive

2011-09-22T23:02:00.001-07:00

"A pillar of physics - that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories.

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said today (NZ time) they have clocked neutrinos travelling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity - the famous E (equals) mc2 equation - just doesn't happen..."

The rest of this story here.

In my opinion, this is the greatest discovery of the century (at least, so far!)

You do have to wonder...

2011-09-03T18:26:00.000-07:00

... how some types manage to log onto a computer, download a book and write a shitty review, when they lack the brainpower to notice the blindingly obvious.

One craphead complains that 'I can't see why they traveled to the 9th century'

Never mind that the blurb on the website states- ‘Meddlers in Time’ explores the shaping of a parallel earth, by altering events in 9th century England.'

Back to your comic books and Spongebob DVD's!

The latest

2011-07-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

6700 downloads!

I like this chap!

2011-05-31T21:08:00.000-07:00

Review by: Richard Christopher on May. 31, 2011 :
Time travel/alternate history somewhat in the 'Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court' (or' Crosstime Engineer') vein. Reads like the Mission Diary it's framed as - the writing is promising journeyman work - but for a REALLY interesting mission. The main characters are pretty bloody minded - nukeing a medieval city to get rid of maybe 5% of the population would take a thicker skin than mine, for example. Heinlein's 'Time Enough For Love' is referenced, staying just this side of the homage/fanfic line. Was surprised to find this one offered for free - it's worth paying for. There is certainly worse out there from major publishers. The author might - if he hasn't already - consider submitting to Baen Books, which has published a deal of similarly themed work.

From Smashwords

Future project

2011-05-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

A discussion about WW2 lead to the idea that two teams of Meddlers in Time could havc been operating during WW2.

One boosting technology (pro Germany)

One other interfering in politics (anti-Germany)

What one would be my team and why...

Back to editing

2011-04-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have re-read MIT after my line edit.

The errors are way down,but there are a few, so here I go again...

MIT country

2011-04-03T00:15:00.001-07:00

The New Zealand setting of Jamieson & Associates farm is shown over in my photo blog:

NZ Back Country

The posts under 'The Tora Collection' show the coastal setting of Earth's main portal site.

There are more coming.

Bloody grammar nazis

2011-03-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

I have weeded out 99.9% of the typos now and yes, I know that not all of my grammar is not perfect.

I have written much the way the characters would actually speak. Some may not know that military and ex-military do not speak the same as civilians. That is way 'some of the words are not used properly', to quote a reviewer. Tradesmen are the same, to a lesser degree.

Mark Twain used to do this too...

But I have made the concession of not using 'fuck' as every third word, which I would if I was being strictly accurate, along with using a 'civilianized' form of radio procedure.

Back from camping

2011-03-12T23:25:00.001-08:00

Bugger!

2011-03-12T21:43:00.000-08:00

I mixed two incompatible styles.

My bad.

Back to the never-ending reformat.

(editing is easy)

Moving onward

2011-03-08T23:19:00.000-08:00

All four are now line-edited.

Time to get back to writing the next one!

A big Milestone

2011-03-08T14:15:00.001-08:00

5000 downloads!

The great line edit progress

2011-03-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

I have about two days work left to finished the last of the three books.

The first two have been uploaded to Smashwords, but 'Meddlers in Time' isn't going through the Meatgrinder- it appears to, but the new download doesn't show.

'Out of the frying pan' has made it through and looks good- unless you download the RTF file, which always changes the font sizes (always has) PDF looks good, though and I will download Epub to my ebook reader tonight.

One thing I have learned the hard way. Don't trust Word to sort out your punctuation problems!

UPDATE:

'The Cockatoo River Incident' made it through and 'Meddlers in Time' went through after I stripped all the Word formatting out, buy pasting it onto notebook, then pasting that back to Word. Or so I thought- It failed the criteria for the Premium list as somehow it had tabs in the document- removed 19 of them (I don't know how they got there) and now its fingers crossed...

The all- new Meddlers in Time

2011-03-05T20:44:00.001-08:00

I have finally finished the line-editing and with several thousand punctuation errors, a couple of dozen typos sorted and a bit of minor tweaking to sentence structure, MIT is in the waiting list at the meatgrinder.

The software appears to have a stripped gear or a bone in the works, but no doubt the Smashwords team will get that sorted before too long.

I love reviews like this!

2011-03-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

Meddlers in Time - or how to run wild with a time machine?

by Veedubvanfan

This is highly entertaining stuff! It picks up most of the niggles we all make about time travel fiction and leaves the rest of the genre far behind... bit like a stealth bomber overtaking a Robin reliant!! Just how much fun could you have if you knew how to time travel? What do you do when you get bored of just living in luxury on your lottery winnings? How about, just for starters, going to the ninth century England with a few mates, say ten of you altogether, a couple of trucks full of modern weaponry, maybe the odd piece from the future .... and face off against an invading army of Vikings!! Three and half thousand of them.
Take as long as you like on your time jaunts, you can take a year off in the time it takes your other half to make a coffee!...

The full review here

A brave new world

2011-03-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

In the dark alleyways of publishing, an author uprising is brewing against Big Publishing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about revolution lately thanks to the events unfolding in North Africa.

My wife, Lesleyann, has friends in Egypt, and they’ve kept us up to date via email. Their dispatches alternate between fear, uncertainty, optimism and celebration.

Revolutions are an awkward and messy business. They represent the end of one paradigm and the beginning of the next. While the root causes can trace back decades, when the uprising arrives it can occur with alarming rapidity...

Read the whole article here

A good day

2011-02-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

Another review and a donation from a happy reader!

Mark C- you will get your wish when I finish the 35th Century story- I intend to put it out as a full-length novel, by tying the novella together.

Cheers!

Research

2011-02-19T23:38:00.001-08:00

Time-travelling trillionaires can't always be off having adventures, so I'm doing a little research on how idle moneyed folks used to live.

Especially slightly eccentric ones.

One thing I have learnt- if you want to write, it helps to read a LOT!

The Hair Shirt

2011-02-13T00:01:00.001-08:00

Three books for a total of 265,000 works to line edit.

It's going to take a month or two. I have finally learnt that slow is the only way.

I'm getting lots of minor punctuation and formatting screw-ups, thanks to upping the font size and enabling the mark-up. Typos or 'wrong words' that don't get picked up on the spell check are running at about one every eight pages. I'm doing a few minor wording changes too, as I sometimes slip into 'Yoda" mode when writing I am.

Those wondering why I don't pay somebody are probably not from New Zealand, where we do it ourselves-at least for the first couple of times ;-)

Line editing

2011-02-11T15:08:00.000-08:00

Again.

This time I have the 'show formatting' setting on.

Painful, but I do want to get this right.

Eventualy

Another Review- thanks Mark C!

2011-02-11T13:57:00.001-08:00

Review by: Mark C on Feb. 11, 2011 :
I have read all three books now and felt it was time to come back and add a review for each. I'll start with the first book.

There is no doubt that the book could use the finer editorial touches the more poular authors receive, but for a self-published first book - well done! It takes awhile to get used to the NZ references (especially from us Canadians!), but using a Kindle allows the reader to look up unfamiliar words.

Yes, the storyline was basic, but it was also thoughtful and certainly very detailed - perhaps a little overboard even for us "A" personality types. I did very much enjoy the premise and the characters. The next two books add to the character's backgrounds and development.

I would have enjoyed some more adversarial aspects in this book, but you get some rewards if you move on to books 2 & 3. Keep up the good work Wayne, I'm looking forward to the 4th book!

Ranking

2011-01-30T21:57:00.000-08:00

In the Smashwords fiction section (Long) Meddlers in Time is 162/17010

I'm in the top 1% of downloads!

Acronyms

2011-01-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

If you are not ex-military or a military enthusiast, you may find the glossary at the back of the book useful!

I DO use a lot of them, being ex-military and an engineer and they are essential, as when your characters are ex or serving military you are going to get a lot of them in conversation.

I would also point out that if I used the EXACT language of such people, my word count would have been increased by about 25%- all Anglo-Saxon colloquialisms ;-)

I left in enough to get the flavour, but removed the rest, as they added little to the actual story!

Praise helps get new books written

2011-01-29T13:33:00.000-08:00

THREE 'Favorite Author' ratings on Smashwords, now!

More reviews in

2011-01-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Alex Kienle for the kind reviews for all three books- these are gold to a new author!

Whats coming?

2011-01-26T23:26:00.000-08:00

One word-

STEAMPUNK

(once I finish the 35th century tales)

Progress

2011-01-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind where I hoped to be- only 5% of the next MIT written.

One of my advisors on all things military keeps throwing me more 'essential reading'- usually exactly what I need for the bit I'm working on!

So while an end product is delayed, I'm hopeful you will find the next book all the better for the wait.

Going back to the first book, my brother had asked if I had read Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'

Having just read it, I understand the question.

There are more than a few parallels- and all by co-incidence.

I'm willing to accept that great minds think alike- and Twain was probably as much a scoundrel as myself ;-)

Migear ebook reader update

2011-01-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

The 'cheap TFT LCD screen' is a plus when out camping and wanting to read at night.

No need for a lamp that attracts moths and blood-suckers for miles! The screen back lighting lets you read in the dark.

With the back lighting turned down to the lowest setting, I'm getting 6-7 hours reading between charges. next step will be to get a solar-powered charger.

A little praise goes a LONG way

2010-12-31T21:32:00.001-08:00

Just found that somebody has given me 'Favorite author' status on Smashwords!

Seems they like 'The Cockatoo River Incident'

That makes my day!

A new site to market your book- free!

2010-12-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

Bookbarista

Courtesy of Dodge Winston- another Smashwords author

A New World Order

2010-12-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc said that sales of digital books made through its website now exceed those of traditional books that it sells online.
Barnes & Noble, which introduced its Nook electronic reader last year to compete with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle, said customers bought or downloaded 1 million e-books via the Nook on Christmas Day.
A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble said that figure included free e-books, but that most were paid downloads...

More here

ebook reader feedback

2010-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Quite pleasing to see the interest my new ebook reader got. A few people I thought would never be interested expressed an interest in owning one.

Especially when they saw how many free books are available!

A review from Barnes & Noble

2010-12-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

SiFi Channel: Here's your next hit series!

Customer Rating See Detailed Ratings

Posted December 6, 2010, 2:47 PM EST: This book, while rough around the edges as far as editing goes, especially in the later chapters, but is otherwise a great read. It doesn't trouble itself explaining any of the conundrums of time travel into the past (where killing your own great great grandfather could cause you to cease to exist), but hey, its Science Fiction, not physics. Also hardly a chapter goes by without characters imbibing ridiculous amounts of alcohol. But the story line begs to be featured on the SiFy channel as the next big hit like the Stargate series (Timegate?). And the writing style is perfect for episode serialization. The tendency to use vintage military gear from an era where it was plentiful should make props cheap. Characters are sufficiently developed without wasting time on soul searching / tear jerking sentimentalism. Bedplay merely hinted at instead of becoming the story. Wayne Watson yanks some chains along the way, misses opportunities to yank others, and gores a few sacred oxen as his characters strike out on a major "do over" of history. With the entire history of earth as its playground the book never lacks for subject matter and neither would a TV series. The book keeps you waiting to find out what effect the meddler in time had in changing earth's history. Getting there is the fun part. A fast and easy read.

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A fair review.

This was never meant to be more than a bit of a fun read.

As for ridiculous amounts of alcohol- the reviewer was obviously never in the NZ Army! ;-)

I FINALLY get to see an actual ebook reader

2010-12-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

Buying an Ebook reader for Christmas?

2010-12-15T00:20:00.001-08:00

...or one of the many devices that can be also used to read ebooks- iPads, iPod touch or the various clones- even a computer.

If you are treating yourself or buying as a gift- how about a bit of added value?

Download a selection of TOTALLY FREE ebooks, to fill a tiny corner of one of the gigabytes!

As well as the many freeware classics available, why not take a punt on a new independent author?

There is no better place to look than SMASHWORDS.

Of course this is a shameless plug for my 'Meddlers in Time' Series, currently available for FREE!

Meddlers in Time

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River incident

Progress

2010-12-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

Over 500 downloads this month and Meddlers in Time ranks 17/1050 in the Sci-fi/fantasy section at Smashwords.

New cover art

2010-12-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

Photography courtesy of:

Gecko With Canon

Milestones

2010-11-30T23:32:00.001-08:00

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire- has just hit 1000 downloads.

About Smashwords

2010-11-20T14:17:00.001-08:00

Introduction to Smashwords - Ebook Publishing and Distribution Made Easy

View more presentations from Smashwords, Inc..

Book Five- kiss your sand-scoured arses goodby

2010-11-12T23:06:00.001-08:00

Commander Jamieson's Engineering battalion fixes a large gravatic drive to a ten kilometer iron-nickel asteroid and drives it into....

Steady progress

2010-11-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

3000 downloads!

Smashwords Milestones

2010-10-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

Smashwords passed the billion words published mark today.

A year ago, they had 150 million words published.

Any guesses on a years time?

More views

2010-10-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

This COULD have been the sort of place featured in MIT

2010-10-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

Stats

2010-10-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

In Smashwords Adventure section 'Most Downloads'

Meddlers in Time 7/530

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan 13/530

Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River Incident 21/530

The one from MIT- Deja vu!

2010-10-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

I was out in the bush today and came across this private hut.

I looked in the window and there was the hut from MIT- down to the old books and the ancient sofa. Just as I had pictured it in my mind...

One year with Smashwords

2010-10-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

The three books crossed the 2500 downloads mark today. Downloads are currently a steady 10-15 a day.

What is good is that the other books in the series are proving popular, as well- which means I'm getting folks back for more!

I never dreamed that many people would have read my stuff- and the files keep going out the door...

Why is it?

2010-09-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

That the only ones that comment on various review sites have ADD or poor comprehension skills!

2400 downloads to date

Milestones

2010-08-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

Over 2000 downloads today!

Stats

2010-08-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

In Smashwords Adventure section 'Most Downloads'

Meddlers in Time 6/470

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan 14/470

Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River Incident 28/470

Finally!

2010-08-13T20:23:00.001-07:00

Smashwords have raised the bar regarding formatting standards. I discovered this when I resubmitted my profiles to get then listed in the sci-fi category and they were flagged as having a variety of formatting errors.

I had to take the whole Meddlers in Time manuscript, paste to notepad and then copy back to Word and reformat, thus stripping out all the hidden Word formatting- a mess, as I wrote this on five different PC's!

Formatting for scrolling ebook readers is different to formatting for the printed page and the 'smarter' readers wind up adding spaces and breaks if you don't keep the formatting very 'clean'

Still, it's done now!

Still more editing

2010-08-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

Smashwords raises the bar and I finally get a copy of Word, so I have been reformatting to appease the gods of Apple.

I had to get extreme with the first book, copying it to notepad, then back to Word and a total reformat. This is the trouble with using five different machines to write a novel using cut & past!

This DID have the effect of making me dream about the characters- even if they were doing stuff not seen in the books- although I may use the dream one day, should I want somebody to have a slow and nasty demise!

Experiment Three

2010-07-27T01:32:00.000-07:00

A one year experiment to see if visualizing, imagining and creating new worlds spills over into my dreams.

Actually, I know that it does- I want to see how much.

In the previous experiment, I found that by writing a few notes on waking, I would remember the contents of dreams which otherwise would soon be forgotten- as is what normally happens for most of us.

Anyway, the on-going dream log is over here.

Annoying

2010-07-09T00:59:00.000-07:00

1500 free downloads and bugger-all in the way of reviews received. (Thanks Francis and Bez!)

It would be nice if even a few of those who enjoyed the stories could click the rating stars- THAT requires minimal effort!

Another Distributor

2010-07-02T00:46:00.000-07:00

All three books have now shipped to Sony Books

Ebooks hit New Zealand

2010-05-27T16:39:00.001-07:00

Ebooks are available at Whitcoulls.

The Kobo Ebook reader is available here at $295- for this price you get 100 FREE classic books.

Best of all- I'm there!

Steady progress

2010-05-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

In Smashwords Adventure section 'Most Downloads'

Meddlers in Time 13/380

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan 30/380

Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River Incident 55/380

As of five minutes ago- 880 downloads

Better pull finger with the next installment!

The Cockatoo River Incident edited

2010-05-19T01:04:00.000-07:00

Got most of my typos out today. I really need to buy a copy of Word.

Also added a few lines to explain why we did not come to the rescue will ALL guns blazing.

Carrying on from Out of the frying pan, we are still on the Agent Provocateur mission.

Not everyone gets a happy ending...

Update:

Now after Word has gotten most of the cock-ups, I'm going through line-by line looking for the rest.

For new and not so new viewers

2010-05-15T02:42:00.000-07:00

A little history:

Meddlers in Time started life as two books- Meddlers in Time and Meddlers in Time- Culture Shock. There are five copys of each in print version- I had a small print done as a test run. At that time I thought the books migh never go any further than that.

But then I rolled the two together, as I planned to self-publish and it was more economical for me to produce one big book.

The next book was started- this was to be Meddlers in Time- Catspaw and covered mainly the adventures in the 35th century that happened before the first book(s)

But then came ebooks and I changed plans, deciding to release the parts of the book as short novels/novellas. This seems to be the way to go when targeting the ebook reader users and those reading on IPhones, Ipads and suchlike.

So I rolled out the first part of this tale as Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Next came Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River Incident and now I'm working on the next part, Meddlers in Time- Downward to Earth.

Freeware is great for 'getting it out there'

2010-05-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Meddlers in Time is now 9/290 and MIT- Out of the frying pan is at 21/290 in the Smashwords Adventure section (over 25,000 words)

MIT- The Cockatoo River Incident is at 72/370 in the Adventure section (all books)

Getting there!

Under way

2010-04-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Right- I have actually started tapping the keys and #4 is on the way.

This one may run a little longer, but I'm hoping to have it done by end of year.

Damn- it's working!

2010-04-26T01:26:00.000-07:00

Downloads are going nuts.

Once I hoped that a couple of dozen people would read my stuff and maybe like it.

It is proving a bit more popular than that!

Tactical decision

2010-04-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

Amongst other reasons, I decided that I need publicity more than sales right now.

This means the books will be available free for a while yet.

Now I need to get started on book four!

Yes- another free book!

2010-04-23T01:51:00.001-07:00

The Cockatoo River Incident is on the way!

Another Dead-Tree option

2010-04-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

Meddlers In Time- Out of the frying pan is soon to be available in hard copy here

A new version

2010-04-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have just finished an extensive edit of Meddlers In Time. I stripped all the formatting by saving it as a txt file, then put back the formatting I wanted and resaved as a doc file.

Curse Microsort Word's autofarmatting!

If you have purchased an older version, you may upload the latest revision at no cost- hell- anyone can have one of the new ones- I'm giving the books away!

It is curently 89th in the queue at Smashwords, so may no be available for a few hours.

The lesson here is- get a book on how to write before you start to write!

UPDATE II
Bugger- something didn't work, so I have gone back to the saved copy.

It's updated, just not quite as nicely formatted as the version that failed. Back to the drawing board!

What they teach you in school here does NOT cut it!

UPDATE:
There is a problem- the new version won't convert to EPUB and I think that the problem is at the other end. It used to work and I have only simplified the formatting- nothing new is in there.

Now its a 'wait & see'...

Up yours!

2010-04-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

Uncle Sammy wants 30% of my royalties, unless I complete his incomprehensible tax forms.

So bugger it- the current 'administration' won't get a cent out of me.

The books stay free!

Bribery

2010-04-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Buy one of the books- no card needed when they are free- write me a nice review and I will send you a copy of the next installment free!

FREE

2010-04-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

Belated Birthday Giveaway:

My books are now FREE.

Bugger it, I'm not making anything selling them anyway.

Get in before I change my mind...

!

2010-04-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

2216 of these used in the first MIT.

Point taken Francis!

Formatting

2010-04-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

All seems OK, with the exception on RTF.

That decides to randomly change the type size for no apparent reason.

HTML, Java, PDF and Kindle all good!

Meddlers In Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire

2010-04-09T00:32:00.001-07:00

Meddlers In Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

This is part one of the 35^th century tales. It covers the period of when Wayne Jamieson is drafted into the Imperial forces, having spent the last forty years as a spacer, pirate, mercenary and lastly- as the commander of a successful privateer Free Company.

After leading a raid that turns the course of a civil war, he is shipped off-planet because of a large price on his head.

On his way back to Old Earth, he manages- as usual- to get involved in a desperate action with the other main character, Jenny DeVries.

This time they do not have the near-magical gates to help them.

This and the next four parts cover the shaping of the protagonists into the deadly weapons found in the first book of Meddlers In Time.

The next in the series is: Meddlers In Time- The Cockatoo River Incident and is due to be released early May 2010.

This weekend- hopefully!

2010-04-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

I just have to run the next installment through a grammer checker and do some final format adjustments and the next 36k words will be posted on Smashwords.

The next part is not too far behind that!

UPDATE:

DONE!

Playing with cover art

2010-04-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

Finished!

2010-04-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

The Cockatoo River Incident!

Now I will spend a month kicking it around and doing a bit of editing.

File cleanup

2010-04-03T02:03:00.000-07:00

I have just uploaded a 'cleaned up' document to Smashwords.

I have found a few formatting errors and have minimised the use of italics. I might like them but a lot of readers don't!

I have learned from this and are now doing all my work on one computer and NOT cut & pasting chapters into a master document- where most of my troubles started!

IPad books

2010-03-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have just opted in to distribute through the Apple store.

Smashwords sure make life easy for us writers!

An E-Book Review 'Which Art In Hope' Francis W. Porretto

2010-03-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

This work stands out as a gem on Smashwords- where unfortunately there is an abundance of cringe-inducing dreck! Such is the price of freeing us all from the gatekeepers of the publishing houses- and one man's dreck is another's romantic fiction!

Heinlien's anarchist/libertarian societies with Julian May's mental adepts!

The tale, set 1200 years into the future, is on a world now home to refugees from earth, who have fled earth's oppressive governments. (If anyone has spare places on such a trip, please contact me!)

The author explore the conflicts between lovers of freedom and those who deliberately or unwittingly impose obligations and duties to others using the 'justification' of the insidious 'for the greater good'

I won't say too much more as I hate to give away a story!

Once I got started, I was stuck to the screen and damned if there wasn't a tear in my eye at the end of the story. Not many manage that!

Francis Porretto is an author destined to go far!

Nowhere else as Smashwords are such quality tales available so cheaply, so spend up!

Available Here at Smashwords

Now I have an ISBN

2010-03-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

ISBN: 978-1-4523-0900-2

Title: Meddlers In Time

Author: Wayne Watson

Publisher: Smashwords, Inc.

Hooray! I have an ISBN! I am in the system!

On track

2010-03-24T01:07:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up The next installment of MIT now.

Another 5-10 k words an the Cockatoo River incident is done.

I think the model of releasing a string of novella-length installments is better than waiting 2 years for me to put out a full length one.

Heel, thinking about the years I spent waiting for one of my favorites to put out another 250k!

Welcome to the brave new world of ebooks!

If only this reflects in MY sales!

2010-03-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Confession

2010-03-17T23:34:00.000-07:00

I said 'Clip' instead of 'Magazine' in the opening pages!

Then forgot to edit it out before publishing.

I DO know better!

Thing is, with telling a story, sometimes you do have to stray away from the technically correct for your target audience.

When on subjects military, you need to change what would be the actual dialogue in order to make it comprehensible to the civilian reader. A string of acronyms which makes perfect sense to one who has served means absolutely nothing to on who has not.

I also tone down the language a lot.

If I used the work 'Fuck' as often as is usually heard in a conversation between servicemen, my word count would be boosted by about 30%! and this doesn't really add much to the tale!

Another retailer for Meddlers In Time

2010-03-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

Now available at Kobo!

Perspective

2010-03-03T00:28:00.000-08:00

I never intended this to be a literary great.

I DID want to write a story that was a bit of fun and an entertaining read.

When I wrote it, I thought I would be happy if a couple of other peple liked it. I still enjoy re-reading it!

It was one of those 'Bucket List' tasks. A lot of people I know TALK about writing a book. They have been doing so for near 1/2 a century in some cases- but I actually did it!

Now I want to do it better and keep getting better!

Format

2010-02-22T00:13:00.000-08:00

The next work 'The Cockatoo River Incident' is going well.

I'm at the point of the incident now and I'm enjoying getting back into writing, after a couple of years of fiddling and editing.

With the ebook format, I'm now thinking of getting away from the 'big book' 200k word model and turning out a series of novellas/ short novels in the 'Meddlers In Time' series.

I can always string a couple together into a larger book...

E-Book Week

2010-02-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

All you want to know about ebooks over here!

For once, NZ is not the test-ground for the new technology.

This would be our telcos wanting crazy money for some of their un-used 3G capacity, no doubt. Not exactly world- leaders in inovation or service, that lot...

Now available at Barnes & Noble!

2010-02-18T20:35:00.000-08:00

I see that I now appear amongst their listings!

here

Writing tricks

2010-02-16T23:49:00.001-08:00

Being very time-poor, I have come up with a technique that seems to work for me.

I have set a target of 500 words five days a week. I find that while driving around on my own (can't do this with other people in the vehicle) I can come up with enough story line to fill out to 500 words easily. I only have to keep a few days ahead with the plot this way- while working to the story plan, of course.

Break anything down into small bit and it becomes do-able.

500 words, five times a week is nothing- but adds up to 100 k a year!

Another price change

2010-02-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

I have decided to try Mark's suggested model of letting the buyer set the price.

Minimum price is 99 Cents US!

The daily grind

2010-02-10T23:22:00.000-08:00

The Cockatoo River Incident just broke the 10k word mark!

I have set a goal of 2k words a week. I know- pathetic to a full-timer, but I work 60-80 hours a week and have a handicapped kid. What I are doing is getting the writing discipline back and 2k a week is a book every two years (allowing for editing and re-writing)

If you want me to write more, tell people (with money) about MIT. I know this won't support me anytime soon, but I'm taking the long view with this!

This message sponsored or prompted by Jacob's Creek Chardonnay!

(The Cockatoo River Valley is on one of the Australian worlds of the Empire)

Cheers!

2010-02-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

My thanks to those kind folks who nominated me for the NZ Sci-fi Award- the Sir Julius Vogel awards!

I got confirmation of my nomination today!

Precious!

2010-02-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

Getting on with it

2010-02-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

The new book has been nothing like the first one, which was blurted out in a couple of month.

I learnt much from that, the big lesson being 'slow down, do it once, do it right'

or at least don't spent three years editing and tinkering!

It's slow going, with work and everything, but 500 words a day adds up over a year1