Indie lovers, you're probably why ahead of me on this, but I found a company called Smashwords that lets you publish your book through their site and they distribute it to many other sites, including an iPhone app called Stanza. Stanza allows subscribers to buy books, including indie books from Smashwords.

The process for publishing your book on Smashwords in e-book form isn't too daunting. It's just a matter of formatting correctly (their way, not yours) so that their conversion program can convert it into many other formats for use on computers, palms, iPhone, and Sony and Kindle electronic readers.

The multiple formats allows you to reach readers from multiple platforms. You set your own price for the book, and receive royalties of up to 85% of your net sales. There are processing fees and Smashwords lets you experiment with different pricing scenarios to find the right price for you and your book. They've recently started an affiliate marketing program also.

All in all, Smashwords seems like a great way for a new writer to get his work out to the public.

American Solutions is having a contest where one lucky American will win free gasoline for an entire year!

They've launched an  American Solutions video contest called "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Nothing." They call it "Pay Nothing" because that's what the winner will pay to fill up their gas tank for the next year.

See the video below:

They're asking people to create videos that demonstrate why a "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" approach is best for our wallets and America in general. After everyone votes for their favorite video, the winner will be announced on their second annual Solutions Day, on September 27, 2008.

This is your chance to send a message to Congress and the American public.

So get out the camcorder and be creative.  You never know, you may be the one who gets to "Pay Nothing" for gas for twelve whole months.

If you've never heard of American Solutions, they're a non-partisan organization designed to rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship, to provide real, significant common sense solutions to the most important issues facing our country.

Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings has asked writers to contribute to his What I Learned From… groupwrite project by blogging about what we’ve learned from Metaphors for Life. Metaphors that have helped define or change our lives or been of some importance to us. So, Robert, here are a couple I remember from childhood.

On occasion I remember my mother telling her friends that her life was the perfect storm!  I remember thinking she was right about the storm part, but that her, and therefore our (my brothers and I) lives were more like a hurricane and not perfect in any way, shape, or form. As time went by, I learned that a good storm, every now and then, not only cleans away the dirt in our lives but it also makes life a little more interesting and keeps us on our toes.

My father-in-law loved to say that life has a tendency to come back and bite you in the ass. He was definitely right about that. I have so many bite marks my rear looks like the surface of the moon. However, he did teach me to protect myself by covering my ass in everything I did, because you just don't know when Murphy's Law will peek around the corner at you.

Metaphors can be life changing, so join in the fun at the above link and let the rest of us know what metaphors made you, you. Maybe your metaphor can inspire someone else to greater heights or give them cause to visit a shrink. Get them in before Sunday the 10th.

Photo from: bildungblog.blogspot.com

I might as well give up writing now. Soon the market is going to be flooded with Novelists, especially romance novelists. The following youtube videos may teach you the basics of novel writing or they may just be fun to laugh at. I especially enjoy the paranormal romance section in the second video. Enjoy!

I must give a shout out to Mary at Writing Blog for putting me on to the first video. During my search for Novel Writing Made Easy, or Novels R Us, I found the second gem.

It's the weekend, and because I noticed something odd on the news this morning I'm going to put my regular musings on storytelling aside for the day and talk about how, like Bush, Obama can't admit when he's wrong.

I'm not a news pundit or a politically savvy lawyer turned journalist, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing the boat on this one. However, I don't think I am, but time will tell.

I remember a few years ago, when the Left in this country said President Bush couldn't admit to his mistakes or admit he was wrong when it came to  WMD's, Rumsfeld, U.S. Attorney Gonzales, securing Iraq's freedom, or the war on terror.

I personally admire a person who can stick to their guns and not give up on their ideals or beliefs due to poll pressure. A person who uses their moral compass to get the job done, knowing they will not go beyond what their moral compass allows. Novelist, Andrew Klavan, recently compared Bush to Batman. Klavan says, "Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous." Like Bush, most of us have learned that the hard way.

At the same time, I admire a person who can accept their faults when their reasoning or agenda goes awry. A person who admits to himself, and others, that he was wrong. I like when that person learns from and corrects his mistakes. We've all experienced that in our own lives. None of us are ever 100% right on decisions we've made. In most cases, we do the best we can with the information we have on hand.

During Obama's recent trip over seas during an interview with Katie Couric, Katie noted that, "...even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge." Obama, as most politicians do when they're cornered, came up with another one of his famous long-winded answers filled with a lot of uh's and stagnant pauses. He could not permit himself to admit he was wrong. That the surge did what General Petraeus and others, like his opponent, McCain, believed it would.

We've all heard about Obama's recent references to him not looking like the men on the dollar bills. Afterward, he said he wasn't referring to his race, but to his youth, his growing up in Hawaii, and other totally ridiculous comments. At the press conference Obama held this morning, he couldn't admit he'd made a mistake and say, "Yeah! it was a reference to my race. So what, I am different than any of those guys! I am black in case you haven't noticed." He then could have admitted that with today's racially charged environment, maybe he was wrong for saying it, whether his statement was correct or not.

At the same press conference this morning, a reporter asked him about his changing his mind on offshore drilling for oil. Again, he went off on some convoluted answer that was intended to cover his backside just in case drilling ends up being the short term answer to our energy problem. Again, he couldn't permit himself to admit that maybe he was wrong about drilling and that it should be the foundation of a broader energy policy to be implemented over the next 50 years, as so many others, like T. Boone Pickens have suggested.

McCain's pundits have recently tried to link Obama to Bush by taking up the mantra that Obama is as stubborn as Bush, because he's too rigid on his policy ideas. That's crazy if, like me, you want a President who doesn't blow in the wind with every poll, but willing to refine his position when necessary if new facts come in or it doesn't go against his moral values or beliefs.

The actual link between Obama and Bush is—like Bush, Obama can't admit when he's wrong.

So, if you're looking for a Bushlike candidate, Obama's your man. He loves exercise like Bush, He's stubborn like Bush, He won't admit he's wrong like Bush. I mean, come on, he even has a pretty wife and two daughters like Bush.

Photo from: thestockmasters.com

When I started  writing my first novel, I jumped in with both feet and never looked back. I had the idea laid out in my head. Not each scene or chapter mind you, or even all the characters, or the setting, or the antagonist, or three acts, or any research on the technology that would eventually become part of the central plot. The ending, you ask? No, hadn't really given that much thought either.

But hey, I did know who the protagonist would be, but no, I hadn't really flesh out his background on paper or anything. He was going to be cool though. I knew that. He wasn't going to be like all the other hero's out there. He was going to be different, something unusual. There was no rush, I could wait to get to him. After all, he wasn't going to appear in the book until at least chapter seven.  So, what's the rush to figure out what made him who he is?

Yep! I had the whole idea right up here in this 3 lb water filled organ known as my brain. After I started writing, I found I had at least five different ways I could go with the story. That was when I decided I would have an ironic ending. Instead, I ended up with a big explosive James Bond finish. Which was great, but it would have been nice knowing the ending when I started writing the story

At the beginning, I thought I knew everything I needed to know about the story. Like, I knew there was going to be two guys and a girl, but I didn't know there would also be a chimpanzee, or ancient frozen bodies, or fighter planes, or dead bodies everywhere, or a machine, which would play an important part in the story. I didn't have any sub plots, or twists, or a background on the chimp. Well, I really didn't need one on her, but it would have been great to have had an idea about what the girl was going to be like.

I wrote so much extra stuff that when I finally decided on the direction of the novel, I was able to cut a small paperback's worth of writing from it. I wrote whole chapters and created new characters as I went, and then decide they didn't fit what I was trying to do.

It was the same when I wrote non-fiction as a staff writer for a self-help publisher. They were only short non-fiction stories on health, wealth, and other similar topics, but many times I still felt like I was going in the wrong direction and would have to delete stuff until I felt I was on the right track.

When I started freelancing for a children's publishing house, they demanded to see and approve outlines before you were allowed to start writing the story. At the time I thought to myself, "What a waste of time. I could be writing the story instead." It took me only one book to come around to their way of thinking.  Every kid's mystery I wrote for them after that, I started by creating character bios and an outline of the story.  Start to end. I found that when I started writing the actual story, it all flowed and came together quickly. I would finish the first draft of over a hundred page book in only a couple of days.

I knew there would no longer be excess fat in my books. I knew where my setting was, who my characters were along with their little quirks, I even knew the ending. I found it made my writing better, more exciting and more precise.

I know everyone has a different way of writing or pre-writing in this case. Some writers use 3x5 cards for notes or to lay out a sort of storyboard. Other's, like me, use outlines. Some writers are mindholders and are able to hold it all in their heads, without losing a single paragraph.

Tell me how do you prepare to write your stories? How do you research? How do you create your characters? Let me know your writing process!

Photo from http://www.friendlyredpencil.com

As you can see by the banner, I've decided to concentrate my posts on the written art of storytelling. In other words, all forms of storytelling laid down on paper or screen for reading. Occasionally I may write about other forms of storytelling, like oral, puppetry and performance storytelling.

My posts will include information on the creation of stories, crafting likable and unlikable characters, writing, editing, publishing, self-publishing and just about anything else in the storyteller's realm. So, grab on to my feed and I hope you enjoy the ride.

What are the 5 primitive steps to getting published, you ask? Let's first start with a known fact, time changes,  people don't.  When the first man living in a cave decided to take a burnt end of a piece of wood and press it against a stone tablet, writing was born.  Back then, most writing was used as a way to keep an accounting of animals, inventory, debts, and the like.

Then someone, a struggling writer, decided to write one of the first stories ever written, besides those written for the Bible's Old Testament, and carve it into clay tablets in a writing style called cuneiform. The first written language.

That story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was probably and instant classic.  The writer most likely handed out stone tablets of the story to all his fiends and family.  In a sense he was the first true Indie published author.  He didn't send copies of his manuscript to various publishers.  He didn't charge anyone for a copy of his work. Well, maybe he bartered for some Pterodactyl eggs or dinosaur meat  for breakfast and supper.

We aren't sure if there was a sequel to his work. It may or may not have been as popular as his first published piece or it may have been lost forever still waiting to be discovered. Kind of like the why your manuscript is waiting to be discovered.

Everybody can tell a story.  We do it everyday when we're shooting the bull with friends and family. But telling a story that's interesting enough to get published is a bit more difficult. Especially if you want to have a publishing house put your book out for the masses to read.

Getting your manuscript in the hands of someone who can make that decision isn't easy. So when you do, make sure it's in perfect condition with no typos, spelling errors, or poor grammar. Those are of course, common sense things you should do if you want to get your manuscript read. Here are five steps to help you get your manuscript into the right hands.

1. Word processors are great at catching spelling errors and some grammar problems, but they won't tell you if your dialogue is good, or if your characters haven't been developed enough. Is your character's internal monologue a bunch of drivel or does it fill in where dialogue can't? Did you show or tell your story? Does each scene or chapter lead the story further down the path to resolution? 

Before sending your material out to a publisher, have an editor look it over. You can find manuscript editors in the back of writing magazines or the Writer's Market Guide, which you can usually get from your local library. If you can't afford an editor, join a local writer's group and have them critique your manuscript.

2. Once you know for sure your manuscript is ready to be read by a publisher you need to put together a query letter. A query letter has at least seven elements.

1. The hook makes the editor want to read more.

2. The handle helps an editor know the overall theme for your manuscript.

3. A short synopsis gives the overview of your plot, its conflict, and introduces your main characters.

4. Your credentials or qualifications shows the editor you have the knowledge and ability to write on the subject.

5. Include a sentence or two about your previous work. If you have no previous work, don’t mention it. They'll assume you’re a first time author.

6. Tell the editor your genre, (action/adventure, mystery, etc.) your manuscript's title and the word count.

7. Make your closing short. One sentence or two. Offer to send the whole manuscript. Don't give them a choice between several chapters or the whole manuscript.

Speaking of which, as a first time writer you shouldn't query unless you have a finished manuscript.

3. One of the best ways to get and invitation to send your manuscript to an agent is at a writer's conference.  Besides learning valuable information about writing, you get to meet editors and agents. So, you need to be prepared to make a pitch about your manuscript. Before the conference you will be asked to make a submission of the work you want to present to an editor/agent.

1. Know your manuscript.  The editor/agent will ask you questions about your submission. Don't prattle on. You only get a short amount of time to impress them. Keep your answers short and precise.

2. Don't be the type of person that goes on an ego trip about how great you write. Editors and agents hate that.

3. Your pitch should be a short 2 to 3 sentence blurb about your book.  Begin by writing out your plot in detail. Then cut, cut, cut, until you have it down to 2 to 3 sentences. Make sure you've written it in a normal speaking voice not a lecture voice. One way to do this is to read book jackets. They're a summary of a book's plot. Try and write your pitch in a similar way.

4. During the rest of your appointment the editor will ask for more information on the plot, title, word count, sub-plots, setting and other items. Be outgoing, but don't overpower the editor/agent. There should be a give and take in the conversation.

4. The hardest part of sending out your query letters or pitching to an editor is learning to accept rejection. It happens to even the best writers. Don't take it personal. In fact, be ready for it.

5. If on the other hand you're told to send in more, follow their instructions to the letter. Only give them what they ask for. If they ask for the manuscript, don't send them sample chapters and vice versa. Remember to include a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) and present your package in an neat manner. Double spaced typed pages with proper margins, etc.

    Besides the manuscript or sample chapters, include the following.

1. A cover letter that reintroduces you to the editor. It should include information about your submission, such as, genre, title, word count, etc.

2. A one page synopsis. Think of this as an expanded pitch, were you get to add more detail about your characters, plot, and so on.

3. For fiction a synopsis is usually enough, but some editors may want to see a chapter outline of your manuscript.  This is usually an automatic item for a non-fiction book, but every editor is different. Write one to two sentences for each chapter describing briefly what the chapter is about.

If you'd rather not jump through the hoops that traditional publishing houses want you to, you may want to be like the writer of Gilgamesh and go the Indie route. I'll have more on that in the future. Remember, writing is not enough, you must also read to improve your craft. A great and cheap place to do that is at your local library or one of the soft chairs at Barnes and Noble.

I remember President Reagan in a debate with President Carter, utter the words, "There you go again."  Well, there Google goes again. Google has just launched  a new site to rival Wikipedia. If you haven't read the story, check it out on Breitbart.com at, Google launches rival to Wikipedia.  Is it time to buy stock in Google or am I too late?

According to the article, Google's own version of a communally constructed online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia went live late Wednesday with a free service dubbed "Knol," which indicates a unit of knowledge. Knol...hmm, I can't help but picture an ugly troll under a bridge. Eh, it's probably just me. "The key principle behind Knol is authorship," say  Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally.

The article says:

While Wikipedia lets any visitors make changes to its online pages, trusting that people with accurate information will correct errors and misleading entries, Google lets folks author their own articles.

"Every knol will have an author, or group of authors, who put their name behind their content," Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally said in a posting on the Google website.

"It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. An enormous amount of information resides in peoples' heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge."

It also goes on to say you can post pictures and pedigrees, and you're able to designate who can contribute to your posting.

I don't know about you, but as a writer who does a lot of online research, I have a policy not to use information I find on Wikipedia unless I find two sources to match it. I've found information on Wikipedia that wasn't accurate.

I wonder just how accurate Google's "Knol" will be, (Dang, there's another word I have to add to my spell checker.) One of the good things I see, is that each knol will have the authors' names, which will make it easier to crosscheck. The fact that the authors' can lock the posting, so no one can add to it without their consent, is surely a step above Wikipedia.

Are you a writer who uses Wikipedia  Do you trust its information? If not, how many times have you found wrong information in Wikipedia?

While you answer those questions, I'm going to go call my broker!