ROBUST discussion

...in a discussion of hardshell panniers:

"I read a Russian novel once," Anderson cut in bleakly. "People with unpronounceable names did nothing for seven hundred and eighty-three pages, after which somebody's aunt died."

That book will never sell. She has to come back as a vampire.

On a side note, I finished writing my book today. All the characters have easy-to-pronounce names. But there isn't a single vampire in the whole thing, so it'll never sell, either.

Good on you, Ama— er, Sierra.

I knew a New Zealander whose name, of course, was Bruce. He had a kelpie (NZ sheepdog, looks suspiciously like a Border collie) that went everywhere with him. The dog came to him as a legacy from the old carpenter to whom he apprenticed, so it already answered to Bruce when he got it.

There were a whole bunch of people who came to my parties who weren't too scrupulous about mentioning that Australian men have a bad reputation with sheep, and maybe this Bruce fellow, with a dog suspiciously also called Bruce — do I need to spell out the disgusting conclusion? A sheep called Daisy is one thing, but a dog called Bruce is quite another, they would say, shaking their heads. We Australians don't reckon much with poofters. Some were dead serious.

So Bruce used to say in a hurt tone, "What do you want me to do, call him 'me kelpie'?" It was years before I discovered, on a film set where the star was a pig, from a farmer, hired as dog handler, wandering around asking plaintively, "Have you seen mekelpie? I've lost mekelpie," that "mekelpie" is the way the farmers down under refer to every sheepdog.

So why shouldn't a vampirista be an Amanda, that's what I want to know. I'd make her a Stephenie but most of my friends would conclude I've gone gaga if I don't remember how to spell Stephanie.

***

Congratulations on finishing your book. You will of course post it in the appropriate place on ROBUST. It will sell. Don't be so negative. Lie about how many people the vampires kill. One per page is a good average.

ZPG.

Where do you get these stories, Andre?

I'll post about the book when it's in the Kindle Store.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Where do you get these stories, Andre?

I'll post about the book when it's in the Kindle Store."

I'm just observant.

You should try Smashwords again. it isn't difficult. Just trash your entire text back to plaintext, then copy it from there to a brand new an empty Word file, then apply a standard indented par style to the whole thing, then find the chapter heads and differentiate them, then apply drop caps to the first par of each chapters, and that's it, a couple of hours.

Now that I've checked my word count, I see that I've written a novella, not a novel (about 44,000 words) -- so I guess I'll have to take out the chapter heads. I have no idea how to "apply drop caps."

Don't you have to download special software to use Smashwords? And how do you upload a cover image?

You don't have to download special software to use Smashwords; it uses MSWord DOC files. You just put the cover image as a JPEG into your MSWord file right at the top. Just read and follow Mark Coker's clear instructions in his Style Guide:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52

More info:

http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_t...

I don't see why a novella shouldn't be broken into chapters.

A definition of novellas says they shouldn't have chapters (they're structured like short stories), so I dumped mine. I'm going to read through the manuscript to see if that causes any problems.

No jpeg I've dumped into MSWord showed up when I upload the file to Kindle. That's why I was concerned about how images work on Smashwords.

I downloaded the how-to book. Haven't read it yet. One of the section heads said you should never use the tab key. That's how I've done all my paragraph indents in the Word file. I hope they aren't shooting for the style I saw in CreateSpace's sample books: single spaced paragraphs with two spaces between 'graphs. That would never work for me. I have too many short 'graphs, and too many sections of short dialogue.

Read the book and follow the steps, Sierra. It was written to hold the hands of idiots, and is a huge success in that genre. Don't try to second guess the guy in charge of the program unless you really know what you're doing.

Get a sample of Iditarod and put it by; choose the PDF.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

When you've successfully executed all the steps, ask again and I'll send instructions to make the one alteration to the standard styles that I recommend to get a more professional appearance (a flush left initial par after a break and at the head of a chapter -- see the Iditarod sample).

***

The reason your cover failed to show in MSW on the Kindle was because you didn't follow the instructions. You have to identify the cover with an invisible bookmark and it is a PITA even for someone who's done it before.

I got as far with Smashwords as redoing my manuscript and running it through their meatgrinder. I got two errors that would keep it out of the premium catalog: not enough "honest, it's my book and I have every right to publish it" info in the copyright part and no ISBN. I unpublished it. Maybe some day I'll venture back and fix the two errors. Right now, I'm tired. I'm going to let the book rest for a while, then go back to it with fresh(er) eyes to proof it again.

Don't care for unindented paragraphs, so wouldn't use that formatting.

Had no instructions for uploading the cover for Kindle; just winged it using the insert function in the program. It'd show in my Word doc, but not on the Kindle. So I got some program that was supposed to insert it via a process of zipping the image and text together. It didn't work. I gave up.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "I got as far with Smashwords as redoing my manuscript and running it through their meatgrinder. I got two errors that would keep it out of the premium catalog: not enough "honest, it's my book and ..."

These are trivial things. They give you the sample copyright text in the DIY book. It would take you ten seconds to copy it from the DIY book and insert it in your MS. If you read the DIY book you will discover that they give you the ISBN, that all you have to do is go tell them you to assign it to you, which you do after they approve the text to go into the premium catalogue.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "That book will never sell. She has to come back as a vampire.

On a side note, I finished writing my book today. All the characters have easy-to-pronounce names. But there isn't a single vampire in..."
If you have no vampires, then I want to read it! Thanks for daring to be original!

Andre: I did read the style info. I just forgot to beef up the copyright part. I knew the ISBN came later, so I figured my text formatting must have passed muster. I was too tired to go back and add the copyright stuff. I've just hauled myself out of bed after more than eleven hours sleep, so I'm more ready to face the world today. I don't know what hit me yesterday. Felt like I was coming down with something, but today I'm that proverbial healthy horse.

Will: I think my story will appeal more to people with lots of estrogen.

Eleven hours! How I envy you. I'm normally wide awake after six, sometimes fewer, and at the end of 20-hour day I'm dragging and well before then I dare not touch a MS for fear of causing a clusterfuck that could take a week to sort out or even send the thing off on a wrong course that wrecks it forever.

You and Will are inventing a new genre here, The Niche of the Estrogen Junkies!

Gotta run. My son is here to help me fix the electrics in my study where the fittings are burned out by high wattage bulbs.

My usual night = six hours sleep. I was sleep-deprived for two nights previous to last night which I think accounts for the hibernation.

I think I'll call the new niche Estro-Lit.

I have a question: Your Smashwords book is marked as available on Kindle. Does that conflict with also selling it directly through Amazon?

Don't burn down the house.

Okay, Andre. My book (Sheet Music) is now up on Smashwords, and it's all your fault. It'll be in the Kindle Store, too, when Amazon finishes the publishing process. I hope no conflicts come of that...

Estrolit sounds like it should be a literary movement found in Barcelona with Carlos Ruiz Zafon as its pressy. (Honorary of course, as he lit out from Barcelona for LA at the first opportunity.)

About Iditarod, Smashwords' server isn't responding, so I can't go look. I'll let you know when I can see what you're talking about.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Don't burn down the house. "

I don't get this.

About burning the house down: I was talking about your electrical problems.

About Iditarod: one of the available formats for Iditarod on Smashwords is the Kindle format. I was wondering if you let Smashwords put your book on Amazon, or if you put it there -- and if you did it, does that conflict with selling a Kindle version on Smashwords?

(Probably I'm making this question more complicated than it needs to be. I went back and forth about whether to disable the Kindle format on Smashwords.)

Now that the various ISPs have graciously let me in and I can see what you're talking about. Smashwords makes two different supplies to the Kindle.

1. Through Amazon (probably AZW, MOBI also possible), not effected yet, no date announced, still being negotiated. If you distribute to Amazon yourself, you should opt out of this in the Smashwords Distribution Channel Manager, in the sidebar of your Dashboard.

2. Through making a generic Kindle format, MOBI, available on Smashwords. This is most desirable because it is one place where readers can get a DRM-free Kindle-readable format. Also desirable because readers can change devices and just download another copy of the book free of charge (unlike at Amazon, where if they trash their and buy a Nook, they've lost their books); this too is a big plus. I don't know who else Smashwords distributes this to but I'd be delighted if Apple and B&N carried an Amazon compatible format! Even if offered the opportunity, DON'T opt out of this one.

The only format I opted out of was the plain text version. It looked terrible.

I'll go remove the Kindle option...

Thanks.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "About burning the house down: I was talking about your electrical problems."

No, I'm not likely to burn the house down. For my hobby I work with high voltage electricity, usually a kilovolt (cf your house electricity at 120V) but up to 5600V on my wall of stacked QUAD electrostatic loudspeakers. I have 600V plus on the electrostatic earphones I'm wearing right now from an amplifier of my own design and construction. Changing a light fitting is light relief. See Jute on Amps -- http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/ High voltage gladiators are reviewed just like novelists:
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Isn't that review the one that got you a stalker?

No, the review that got me a whole newsgroup full of stalkers -- the sad sack I described who came from Chicago to within 50ft of my house in Ireland was just the funniest -- was in a technical magazine called Glass Audio, and it was about SEX, the SingleEndedeXperimentalamplifier. People get passionate about the most amazing things. Arms outside the sheets are light relief.

See the second review above? HFN&RR is like the NYT, WSJ, Kirkus, Library Review, all rolled into one for the hi-fi freaks. When HFN&RR gave me that encomium, these stalkers harassed the editors with demands that they retract! One poor editor got 11 trans-Atlantic calls in a single day. I don't think I'd get any work done if my phone range 11 times on a single day with an angry demand that I reverse a good review I gave someone...

"This section needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_...

"Prose" apparently needs explanation to the average Wikipedia contributor, because it is a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose

Even after a structure for the article is suggested, and potential contributors are told it must be written in "prose", the Wikipedia hierarchy still finds it necessary to give a "guideline" which links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedi...

That's a lot of effort for a very uncertain result.

"My wife refuses to eat venison. I've tried explaining to her that
God obviously uses "cute" to indicate "tasty." So far, no dice." - -Frank Krygowski

There's an idea for a restaurant name: The Bambi Buffet.

" An Abomination
I bought a new appliance that had nylon
friction washers on frequently used nuts.
I stabbed them with an ice pick until they fell out."
-- Michael Press

"Honestly the Canadian retail system can make GUM look like Neiman-Marcus."
-- Chip C, Toronto

----------------------------------------
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
----------------------------------------

PeteCresswell

Andre Jute wrote: ""Honestly the Canadian retail system can make GUM look like Neiman-Marcus."
-- Chip C, Toronto"

Of course, that would be Needless Markup (oldie but a goodie)

Andre Jute wrote: "----------------------------------------
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
A..."

Just fell off my Turkish lover...laughing

Oh my, the adrenaline of laughter is good for me too. Fell of your Turkish lover! I wonder what some more self-righteous folk who might drop in here would make of some of the perfectly innocent dialogue on ROBUST.

I don't know but I'm not ready to give up the laughter.

Hmmm, does the Turkish lover like leather?

I couldn't finish that "poem" Andre. It reads too much like text speak. :D

I'll you a secret, Claudine. I don't use a mobile phone. I had one of the first ones, a big clunky thing with an antenna that extended to six feet. One day while I was out bicycling, my NY intellectual rights lawyer called me. "I'm jogging in Central Park," he shouted. "Must be important if you call me from the park," I said. "Nah, just called to let you know I'm jogging and I got my phone with me." I was so pissed off, I didn't even tell him to FO, I just threw the whole contraption (I seem to remember it required a battery case or maybe a transmitter on a curly cord) in the stream beside the road, where it made a satisfying sizzle.

These days I carry a mobile phone in the saddle bag of my bike, charged but switched off except for me to call out in an emergency.

LOL! I got my first Nokia when they hit the market in SA. I love my Nokia (well my iPhone these days) but if someone calls me again when I am busy in the bathroom or doing something else I am going to crush them senseless then chuck the phone. I like my phone, I like being contactable under certain conditions but hate the intrusion. I miss the pre-electronic age freedom of just doing my own thing. Alexander Graham Bell should never have invented the telephone!

My family has a mobile phone, but here in Oz, coverage is patchy and to use it at home, we have to climb the nearest hill. As a result we don't tend to use it.

A few years ago I accompanied a busload of teenagers (15-year-olds) on a Science excursion into the desert. Somewhere along the way, a phone rang. It took me a long time to realise that it was mine, but when I went to answer it, I suddenly realised I didn't know how! Needless to say, the teenagers were very amused.

The only phone I have is mobile, but it sits in my house 99% of the time. Only time I take it outside is when I'm picking up someone and want to be able to phone them when I'm outside waiting. Too lazy to go to the door.

I don't own a cell phone. I can't use it when I'm teaching, and I damn sure don't want to have one when I'm writing, reading, or fishing.

I enjoy going "off the grid" when I go out. My wife knows where I'm going, and I give her a general idea of when to expect me home. My sons are away in college, and they don't call me all the time during the day.

Maybe I got sick of cell phones because I used to be required to have one for work in my former life, but I don't miss it at all.

Plus, one of my buddies doesn't carry one either, and we have a bet going on who will get one first.

I'd love to go off the grid some days. Other days, it scares me not having a phone when I am out.

Will, you can go off the grid by turning off the phone or at least turning off the ringer. I do that daily right in my own house. The cell is there to serve you, not vice versa. You gotta be the boss of it.

Claudine wrote: "I'd love to go off the grid some days. Other days, it scares me not having a phone when I am out."

I agree, Claudine. When I go hiking it is definitely my security. It makes me feel safer having the ability to call for help. I've also used it to help others in trouble.

I do not dare even take out the trash without my mobile phone.

My iPad Is my number one companion during my number two moments.

That collation of cold transistors, responsive only to electrical transients, own you, Shawn.

Mind you, there was a time when I would go nowhere without my Apple Newton, and before that my Epson PX-8 (called a Paris in the States, an early laptop) had to be put in the car before I would get in. But I went into rehabilitation with a really good motivator, me, and broke the habit, cold turkey.

Shawn wrote: "My iPad Is my number one companion during my number two moments."

I'm like that with my Kindle. It used to be that I had tons of books stacked on the floor in the bathroom, on top of the toilet cistern too. Now it's a few less books and my Kindle. Oh the joys!

Andre, I break the habit at least once a year over December. 4 to 6 weeks sometimes with just my cellphone for company. The laptop, desktop, iPad gets left at home. Ah the bliss.

Claudine wrote: "Andre, I break the habit at least once a year over December. 4 to 6 weeks sometimes with just my cellphone for company. The laptop, desktop, iPad gets left at home. Ah the bliss."

I used to be so bad, my family wouldn't go on holiday with me. Laptop on the breakfast table, that's divorce court proceedings when you're supposedly on holiday. Laptop on the beach really pisses people off...

I bought a Kindle specifically to read in the bath, because the iPad is no good inside a plastic ziploc baggie, and I take my bath too hot to have faith that the steam won't get the expensive electronics; the steam even got my flying watch*, which was supposedly waterproof to 200 metres or ten atmospheres. (Don't ask me why a flying watch has to have a diver's certificate; I swim too badly to ditch in open water. Citizen fixed it for "only" EUR 70...) Also, I lie in the bath for an hour or so at the end of a looooong day, and sometimes fall asleep, and then the tablet drops in the water, so the ziploc is essential.

* http://coolmainpress.com/andrejutewat... and scroll down

An indie author "promoting" her low-priced book with commendable honesty:

"Cheap But Not Invaluable!"

Best laugh I've had all day.

Come to think of it, the only laugh I've had all day.

Unfortunately I live with a man who has an iPad, iPhone, laptop, desktop, various other gadgets (he's IT manager so loves his gadgets) and while I attempt to stay uncontactable for those few weeks, he would be lost without his toys :D Admittedly he only takes his laptop and iPad plus phone with, the rest get left at home. He can't use the connection at the house during December as it's a modem connection, ADSL hasn't made it to Hermanus yet and with a restricted amount of gigs on 3G he pretty much is limited too. His other obsession is his D90. I don't mind that little gadget at all.