thinking

Sticky Brain

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

We went to Geek Market this weekend and it was a lot of fun. It’s an incredibly well run event with some of the nicest staff and volunteers. Sales were ok for us, but nowhere near what I’d expected. We still made our table and got to hang out with Renaissance Press and all the other awesome people who were there.

Two highlights of the weekend are the Blush Kickstarter making its first stretch goal and my awesome wife winning the Fantasy Short Story Scholarship contest. She worked really hard on both Blush and the story, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Between Geek Market and all the other things I’ve been working on, I was completely and utterly exhausted last night. I should have easily fallen asleep… My brain had other ideas.

How Well I Sleep by Fowl Language Comics
How Well I Sleep by Fowl Language Comics

As I lay awake until 1 or 2 in the morning (I stopped checking at 12:30), my brain kept running an idea for a Webcomic through my head. Over and over, I kept thinking of what it could be and the story and the tone. Sigh.

Suffice it to say, I was even more exhausted this morning. I still couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So I spent this morning writing it out. I’ll pitch it to a friend who’s interested in drawing more and we’ll see what happens. I mean I really don’t have enough to do.

I don’t want to spoil anything and the comic would be a collaboration so things will change, but I can give you the working title: “Joust a Windmill”.

 

What sort of things does your brain keep you up with?

Later Days!

Éric

We’re a Team (Or why my Wife does the things I don’t want to.)

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My wife went to New York last week and I was hit by the realization that I no longer have the complete skills it takes to survive alone.

Ok maybe I’m exaggerating but the fact that we’ve each specialized in certain tasks becomes more and more evident every year.

This might seems confusing or odd but when your partner is willing, and good, at doing something then it’s natural to let them do it. It frees your time and energy to do other things that you’re good at instead.

In a large group, my wife will do more talking that I will, no matter what group it is. She’s much better at approaching people at events.

On the flip side if we’re in a store I will automatically take the lead and speak with the staff.

There are countless other little things, like how she remembers people’s birthdays and reminds me.

This is an interesting phenomenon and makes me wonder if a lot of failed partnerships (romantic, business, friend, etc) are due to the fact that people don’t want to give up, or take, control of the same things.

Let’s say you ran a bakery and you loved kneading the bread but hated mixing it. If your partner was ok to mix it but wanted to knead it too, you’d have to compromise or tensions would be the only things rising. (Bread puns dough not get old.)

Maybe it’s not just about what comes naturally but what you’re willing to do even when you don’t want to.

Does this form of partnering, where you let the other do the stuff their better at, cause a loss of self or opportunities for self-discovery?

In theory it’s only by failing that we learn from our mistakes but if there’s someone there to help us prevent the mistakes does that mean we’re not learning? Does letting someone else remember all the details of Lord of the Rings make me less of a fan?

Good questions to ask. I obviously have a biased view. I think that having my wife do things that she’s good at, frees me up to do things I won’t be able too. Sometimes that ends terribly, like the time I decided to try and learn metal working (our poor table). And sometimes it ends well, like the time I decided to learn how to roast and flavour my own coffee (the end product is yummy, not sure if it’ll be profitable yet).

 

These are the types of things I think about while roasting coffee for 10+ hours.

Is there a task that your partner (business, Romantic, etc) takes care of that you’re extremely thankful you don’t need to do?

Eric

Thinking on Covers, Names, and Self-Publishing

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Hello my imaginary friends,

I’ve been thinking again about self-publishing. Less about the idea of doing it and more about the puzzle of doing it.

From what I can tell there seems to be 8 parts to it:

  1. Writing the book
  2. Story and Copy Editing
  3. Formatting the inside of the book for various outlets (Ebooks, Print, Etc)
  4. Formatting and producing a cover for various outlets (Ebooks, Print, Etc)
  5. Having the books printed.
  6. Distributing the printed and Ebooks.
  7. Letting people know that the books exist.
  8. Repeat number 7 several times in many different ways.

Written out as a list it looks a lot less intimidating than it does in my head.

Now the problem with self-publishing is that an author isn’t by nature good and doing all 8 steps. I knew that I can handle 1 (I’m close to finishing novel five) I know I can do 3 (I’ve worked as a Layout Artist for over five years now) and I have a good idea how to do 5 and 6 (I also have friend who have offered to teach me how.)

My big problem is 2, I know I need to pay for an Editor and the minute I know if I’m self-publishing, I’m contacting people who can do it. I realize it isn’t cheap but it’ll be worth it.

Let’s leave 7 and 8 for a later post.

Book Covers

So the majority of my thinking has been about 4. I strongly believe that an awesome cover is worth its price. If I self-publish I want the book to practically sell itself. I want to pass by it and say, “That looks awesome I should read that… oh wait that’s my book.”

For The Elizabeth Investigates series, if I self-publish, I want to make sure that the covers stay consistent in style and feel. That means I need, not a cover artist but an artist. I have one person who I know will do a great job but is ridiculously busy with other projects.

I know that there are cover designers out there but I haven’t found one that matches what I write. So I looked on DeviantArt for artists that match certain styles. I found a bunch and I wonder if getting a commission from them would be difficult. I know I’d have to look into copyright issues and so on but I think it might be the best option. I can format the cover myself, what I need is the art.

I’m sure a lot of them will/would ignore me but it’ll be worth a try. I wouldn’t offer anything specific; I’d lay out my needs and ask for a quote. I’m assuming it would be somewhere in the ballpark of $100 to $1000. Dollars but maybe I’ll be surprised.

The next question becomes one of style. Since I write YA, I tend to mix genres a lot. The Elizabeth Investigates series is Urban Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, with smatterings of Supernatural, Suspense, and Romance. That’s not the easiest thing to show off in a cover.

I could go with the normal YA Urban Fantasy style, like the Percy Jackson or Harry Potter covers, I could follow the Adult duo-coloured Urban Fantasy style, I could go with an old style fantasy cover where they try to put everything that happens into one illustration, or I could go for the simplistic Twilight style of cover. Or do I go for the older Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys style? All of which are awesome.

It depends on what I’m trying to sell the book as. If I go with the old teen mystery books, I’m telling people this book will be similar but with magic. If I go with a darker Urban Fantasy cover I’m telling them that this is a kid’s supernatural thriller.

nancy-drew-books-cover

It’s a lot to decide, I almost think it could be more important than even the title. The best case scenario, I think, would be to get an homage to the old mysteries with the art style of newer urban fantasies. Best of both worlds.

Author Name

The next thing that’s been bugging me is my name. I don’t want a pen name because that would be a pain but I’m trying to decide what variation to use for my writing.

In day to day life I sign my emails and credit card receipts with Éric Desmarais. My full name is Éric Albert Desmarais.

For a long time I considered using my full name but I don’t know, it feels pretentious.

I could use Éric A. Desmarais and I have. The initial makes it seem more literary for some reason. I could also use É.A. Desmarais.

You get the point. It’s an identity thing I guess. Maybe I should just go with Éric Desmarais.

 

Does the cover affect your interest in a book?

Would the name of the author, who you don’t know, make a difference in whether you bought a book?