Category: Uncategorized

by the Boom-Books Production Team

21st-century e-book publishing is full of questions and mysteries. Some are opportunities which can become chores. For instance: back matter: that strange, ancient substance which often goes unnoticed even though it fills big chunks of the universe. Traditionally, back matter follows a book’s text and comprises anything from footnotes and index to Full Copyright Notice and About the Author. It’s a great place to tell readers about other books by the same author, publisher, or both. In an e-book, it’s a chance (and therefore an obligation) to include links to those books, and other clickable gateways for curious readers.

At Boom-Books we frequently update the links in our back matter. Lately, as the EPUB format has become more universal (that’s its purpose), paradoxically we’ve run into new glitches. Sometimes the robots-in-charge reject a book that’s been published in this same venue, in this same format, for years–with no explanation but a cryptic declaration which recalls the advice from a Magic 8-Ball:  Reply hazy. Try again. Or simply: No.

Recently we’ve had responses from Nook and Kindle to their EPUB format glitches which may be helpful to others facing the same problem.

On Kobo, our revision (repeatedly) provoked “unable to upload this e-book as expected.” Here’s Kobo’s Support’s response:

We’ve had a small number of authors report this issue to us. Our web team are currently working on a fix but in the meantime, we’ve found a work around.

Would you be able to clear the all content and submit the content file again?
1. Click the ‘Clear all’ button and to remove the content you had previously uploaded.
2. Click ‘Stop editing’
3. Go back to the ‘Add eBook Content’ section
4. Upload the saved content file and click ‘Replace File’.
5. Click ‘Next’ to save your changes.
6. Click “republish” button.

This should allow you to publish your edited file without running into any other errors.

On Nook, the formerly outstanding Previewer for uploaded e-books has evidently been replaced by a Manuscript Editor, which in our case introduced format errors to a previously successful EPUB file.

Here’s Nook Support’s response:

If you are not satisfied with the way your .epub manuscript file was imported into the Manuscript Editor or displays in the Previewer, you can instead put your .epub file on sale as a NOOK Book exactly as it was created by you.

After you submit all of the required NOOK Book details, a “Publish” button will appear in the upper right corner of the Manuscript page. Click this “Publish” button and select to put on sale “The original .epub file I uploaded”.

The “Preview NOOK Book” link displays the contents of the Manuscript Editor, so if you select to put On Sale “The original .epub I uploaded” then you can skip this preview because you are not putting the contents of the Manuscript Editor On Sale.

Once your Project is on sale as a NOOK Book, you can click “Download ePub” on the Manuscript page to view the NOOK Book file that customers download after making a purchase.

We’re committed to keeping as many book-publishing outlets open as possible. We hope this will help.

by CJ Verburg

Four days of panel discussions by a whole kaleidoscope of experts in the book business led to an equally kaleidoscopic range of conclusions, predictions, and advice. Here are some highlights:

1. Don’t waste your time seeking an agent and a traditional publishing contract.  It takes forever to get an agent, if indeed you can find one at all; then it takes her/him forever to find that one editor who “gets” your book. Advances–up-front payments against future royalties–are history. You’ll still have to do most or all of your own marketing; the publisher will only support your book for its first few months out the gate; and they and your agent will take most of your earnings.

2. Don’t self-publish.  You’re a writer, not a designer, editor, and marketer. Take advantage of professional help! Your agent isn’t just your negotiator, but your career manager–objective and irreplaceable.  Without one, most serious publishers won’t even look at your manuscript.  And without a traditional publisher, you can’t join guilds such as Mystery Writers of America, so you’re not eligible for the Edgar and other awards that can propel your book to the top.

3.  Blurbs are crucial.  Before you publish a book, spend at least 3-6 months sending out ARCs (advance review copies) to big names in your field, to garner some quotable praise you can feature on your cover, website, social media, etc.

4. Nobody believes blurbs anymore.  It’s well known that many people quoted on book covers and in other PR haven’t read the book. On Amazon and other social media, reviews are constantly bought and sold.  Even reputable reviewers pick and choose from a tiny selection of books prescreened by their editor.

5. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are a dying breed.  More and more people every day switch to e-books, and even those who prefer print books usually buy them online.

6. Independent bookstores are thriving.  For the past two years, more bookstores have opened than closed. They’re changing their focus, adding more events and long-distance orders; they’re successfully adapting to the changing industry.

What everyone agrees is that it’s the Wild West out there. Publishing is in upheaval. The e-book and print-on-demand revolution mean that more books are being published every year than the year before. Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. How all this will shake down is a question being asked every five minutes, and answered with new start-ups, apps, and how-to guides which come and go as fast as books themselves.

It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. It’s the age of wisdom, it’s the age of foolishness; it’s the spring of hope, it’s the winter of despair. We have everything before us, we have nothing before us. Where have we heard this before?

by Charisse Howard

If you can’t make it to Carnival in New Orleans, sail back in time two hundred years and celebrate with Lady Barbara & the Buccaneer!  Climb aboard a Louisiana bayou pirate ship for a night of spicy romance at the illicit 1814 Mardi Gras on the bayou island of Grand Terre, for a special now-through-Tuesday price of just $1!

On Smashwords, click here and use the code SU94C (not case-sensitive);
On AllRomanceEbooks (ARe): just click here.
Vite!  Vite!  The coupon expires at dawn on Wednesday.

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the puritanical Americans banned the rowdy French celebration of Mardi Gras.  While Napoleon fought to conquer Great Britain and continental Europe, the newly United States launched the War of 1812 to snatch Canada from the distracted Brits–and to stop Britain from snatching sailors off American ships.  Once again, as they had 200 years before, the Louisiana bayous became pirate territory.  Jean and Pierre Laffite and their comrades ran an Amazon-sized smuggling network, buying and selling and capturing goods from French, British, Spanish, and American ships alike.

By 1814, Andrew Jackson, who didn’t know that the War of 1812 had ended in stalemate, was on his way to fight the Battle of New Orleans.  It wasn’t a wasted clash:  Jackson’s victory would tip the scale in the peace negotiations.  But that Spring, the only Americans who could celebrate the great French tradition of Mardi Gras were the buccaneers of Barataria Bay.  Join the fun for a night of hot romance and revelry with Lady Barbara & the Buccaneer–half price from now until dawn on Wednesday, March 5.

by C.J. Verburg

Edward Gorey visited San Francisco only once, on a R&R break from his tour of duty in the U.S. Army during World War II. Since his death in 2000, the City of Love’s embrace of this brilliant Chicago ->Boston ->New York ->Cape Cod artist and author only seems to grow warmer.

It was in 2000 that the Edwardian Ball was launched. This increasingly legendary Steampunk celebration has mushroomed in 14 years from a fringe event into a multi-floor two-day festival, a bizarre Beaux-Arts bazaar of vendors, music, vendors, performances, vendors, acrobatics, dancing, and above all, costumes displaying every imaginable variation on Edwardian and Victorian, Goreyesque and Goth.

2000 also marked the first birthday party for Edward Gorey at the Cartoon Art Museum. I had hosted parties for Edward, who generally loathed and avoided them, on Cape Cod during the late 1990s when we were collaborating on theater projects. He strongly urged me not to fly back East for his 75th birthday, so instead, I got together with CAM to stage a sampler performance of some of his theater pieces, plus a giant cake. I sent him photos, not suspecting that less than two months later he would die from a heart attack.

This year Edward Gorey’s birthday–February 22–falls on a Saturday. CAM’s celebration, two days earlier, will be part of Yerba Buena Third Thursdays, a monthly evening of open museums and galleries in the area around Yerba Buena Park. If you’re in downtown San Francisco on Thursday night 2/20, drop by 655 Mission Street anytime between 5 and 8 PM to peruse the current exhibitions, watch a slide show, have your Fantods read, or buy a book written, illustrated, and/or inspired by Edward Gorey.

If you’re on Cape Cod in March, you can catch any of three preview screenings of clips from Christopher Seufert’s affectionate documentary film of Edward Gorey’s life and work in the late 1990s.  Edward and Chris met when our town of Yarmouth opened a local-access TV station, C3TV. Eternally curious and experimental, Edward (and I) signed up to learn how to use this new medium; Chris was the resident expert. TV animation wound up not being a medium Edward chose to pursue, but Chris was fascinated by the media he did pursue, and pursued him. Over Edward’s theatrical groans of protest, Chris and company followed him everywhere with cameras rolling. For the price of some inconvenience (along with plenty of admiration), the legacy to which Edward paid no particular attention during his life is now bolstered by footage.

Wherever you are on February 22, take a moment to look closely at one of Edward Gorey’s extraordinarily intricate and beautiful drawings; read one of his startlingly simple but unsettling books. And don’t forget George Washington. This day has given us plenty to celebrate.

by CJ Verburg

Almost every time someone famous dies unexpectedly, someone else labels that death a tragedy.  Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death last Saturday night was a tragedy, in the Greek sense: not just unexpected, but perversely made inevitable by his own choices.  Among other things, it has unleashed a good deal of muttering about “that deep dark lonely place” which is said–usually by non-artists–to be the wellspring of creativity.

The deep dark lonely place popped up again at a recent online publishing hangout.  The speaker was talking of the “community” of writers from which 21st-century books emerge.  In contrast to what I used to call the John School, i.e., the postwar literary circle comprising successful writers from Barth and Cheever to O’Hara and Updike, the present school is school-less.  The Johns gave us shelves full of novels about sex, love, competition, and alienation in academia, because academia was where they lived–a prime source of their income, prestige, and visibility.

Just as the internet has shaken publishing companies out of their old niche, it has shaken out the academic community of writers.

Of course, “community” is used nowadays to mean any diverse group which the speaker wishes to treat as if it were monolithic: the gay community, the black community, the  community of nations.  Somewhere a pundit is probably commentating even now about the Facebook community, the Twitter community, the Pinterest or Reddit or Wattpad community.

Just as the real-estate community redefined the word “home” to mean what used to be called a house, the word “community” is wielded as a kind of demographic comfort food.  In our hearts, we all want a home.  We all want to belong to a community.  Our need for achievement seesaws with our need for affiliation.

Think of any online group you’re active in.  How community-like does it feel to you?  Would these folks invite you over for a cup of coffee?  Drive you to the hospital in an emergency?  If the NSA (which sees all and knows all) accused one of them of a crime–say, murder or terrorism–would you leap to his/her defense?

When an actor performs in a play, he places himself in the hands of the other actors onstage.  Like a trapeze artist, he trusts that when he jumps, he won’t fall to his death; someone will catch him.  That is the place where art comes from.  Call it community; call it home.  It is not deep, dark, and lonely.  Art happens in the safe place where you are free to do your best work.

When I write, the fictional characters I create become a community.  I know I’m inventing it, the same way I used to invent a family for my dolls.  Still, whether I’m writing a play or a novel, I’m in a place that gives me immense emotional satisfaction (punctuated with hair-tearing frustration) as long as I’m fully immersed.  Coming out is a jolt:  What’s all this, then?

Years ago I taped up a twisted Beatles line over my typewriter:  When I write, everything seems to be home.

Why does writing, or performing or directing, or painting, or designing a book cover, feel like home?  I don’t know for sure.  I know that, like my dollhouse, this mini-world is more manageable than the big one outside.  The people in it may be charming, irritating, or frightening; they’re rarely boring.  And although they are full of surprises and demands, they never seriously threaten me.  Here, I’m the NSA: I see all and know all.

Art is escape.  Oasis.  Sanctuary.  It’s reality that’s a deep dark lonely place.