The second printing of a digital book

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You’ve written one or a dozen books after you uploaded your first digital book. You’ve written tens of thousands of words for blog post, articles or even short fiction works.

Now is the time to go through your first digital books and make them better. Many authors say their first book or first half a dozen books are still sitting in the bottom drawer of their desk, never to see the light of day. With a digital book it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Tied of working on your current book. Got a bad case of writers block, then go reread your first digital book. If your like me you’ll cringe or cry. But you don’t have to sit there. Edit the book, change the book, improve the book. Digital books are fluid. Rework the book and call it a second printing.

Even if the book is a perma-free book, it’s your introduction to new readers. You can make it better. Think bionic book.

After slaving away at upgrading your first book you’ll be eager, desperate to get back to you current work that had you writer’s blocked. You’ll want to do anything but keep slugging away at that horrible first book. The first book isn’t horrible, you have learned so much since the time you wrote the first book. Now is the time to incorporate what you learned into the first book.

Go for it. In a year or two it will be time to do another edit/rewrite of your first book and a third printing.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage

Success, the power to modivate you or at least to make you work faster

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Back in the 1980s I build a simple device to assist a portable radio setup. It didn’t work in the field. It didn’t work back home either, but I didn’t have time to check it out before the trip.

Fast forward 30 years. A use for the device came up so I dug it out. With the help of the internet I found the information needed to get the device working.

After rebuilding the device, it still wouldn’t work. I replaced many of the components in the device. That didn’t get it working either.

I spent a good part of yesterday working on the device. It’s not that complicated a circuit. At the end of the day it still did not work and I was depressed. Late in the night I had an idea and rebuilt the cord that connects the device to the radio. It’s a cord, simple wires. No batteries needed for a cord.

Early this morning I plugged the device in and it worked. Last night I cut the ends off the cable and installed new connectors. It could have been a bad connector, a bad solder joint, a bad piece of wire at the end of the cable. It doesn’t matter, the device works.

On the wings of success today flew by and I got a ton of stuff done. Unfortunately I didn’t get any writing done yesterday or today, but I got stuff done. It’s a horrific downer when simple things, that you built, don’t work, and a major high when you finally get them to work.

Having trouble writing? Then do something simple and get it done. Celebrate the completion. Then write.

Stray strong, write on.         Professor Hyram Voltage

Should I add a vampire to my story?

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To add a vampire or not add a vampire.

To sell more books or not to sell more books.

That is the question.

 

It’s easier, lazier to throw in a Vampire.

Do I surrender to a quick sell?

Do I hold out for my vision?

 

My beta reader says make him a vampire.

People buy books if there’s vampires in them.

Do I resist? Do I stay my path?

 

Vampires are supermen.

Vampires are demigods.

Vampires are a cop out.

 

You can not defeat a thing with a thousand year of experience.

You can not defeat a thing with his army of the unholy.

I tire of this battle.

 

To sell out or not to sell out.

To sell more books at any cost.

That is the question.

 

Stay strong, write on.       Professor Hyram Voltage

 

Friends of the Library and old books

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As I was taking my morning walk today, I swung by the city library. When I walked in they were putting out a new load of books from the ‘Friends of the Library’. People donate books to the Friends of the Library and the Friends sell the books at very modest price with the proceeds going to the library. These books range from someone cleaning out a closet to people with too many books wanting to make some space it their lives.

The book range from old best sellers (and sometimes not so old), to ancient children’s books, to books that were not as good as the buyer thought they would be. I once found a signed murder mystery book by a well known author in the pile.

This morning I picked up a couple of books on railroads. I’m not a railroad fanatic, but I write Steampunk and it’s important to get the details right. Also the books had pictures of how people dressed in the late 1800s. This is very valuable information. Steampunk readers can be very picky about the details.

One book also showed the sleeping arrangements for foreign trains. In the US, the Pullman car was the king of railways and is the most shown in the movies. One picture showed a British train with people sleeping in what I would call the overhead baggage bin if it was on a airplane. It also showed how one family had hung blankets down the side of the over head sleeping bin so the people sleeping on the wood benches below could have some privacy. Sleeping or hiding in an overhead bin on an old train is going into one of my novels.

Check out your local library, some of the information is not free but it can be cheap.

I always wondered why writers never talk about writing in libraries. It’s quite, the chairs are nice and the big library in the next city has an expresso bar that the library runs attached to the side of the library. The library is also cheap and the good ones are air-conditioned and heated.

Stay strong, write on.             Professor Hyram Voltage